Insanity: Such a Relative Term
by Taisho Samara
Summary: Have you ever heard a madman howl out his conquest? Sakura has...  She knows that she's becoming the monster her father was before he lost control. The Hyuga is only postponing the inevitable. The Inner Haruno is taking over, and Sakura is next in line...
1. Prologue: Daddy?

A/N: Hey readers! It didn't take me long to start up another story! Because of the dark themes that will be used in this story, I will be rating it M. I hope you enjoy "Insanity: Such a Relative Term".

Disclaimer: As in all of my stories, I will only say this once; I have no ownership of the Naruto series or any merchandise that is produced from the series, although you have no idea how much I wish that I did. However, the plot of this story is purely my own.

**Prologue: Daddy?**

"Sakura, be a dear and bring Kyo in from outside. I'm sure he's ready for his nap," a young woman asked her seven year old daughter.

"M'kay mom!" the carnation haired girl exclaimed happily, running out the door to fetch her three year old brother.

Sakura was ecstatic; not only would she be starting at the ninja academy in the next week, but her mother was pregnant with a baby girl. '_My sister,_' she thought giddily. While her little brother was annoying, she loved him dearly, and she knew that she would love her little sister just as much.

As she ran outside, she spotted her father walking up the street, getting ready to turn into their compound. "Mama!" she called, turning in the doorway. "Papa's home from his mission!" With a smile, she ran past Kyo straight into her father's arms, hugging his legs.

The older man seemed to wince, his own pinkish hair falling over his eyes as he gingerly held his daughter's shoulders.

Haruno Saboten was only twenty-six, a pink-haired man valued in the shinobi world for his prowess in Genjutsu and weapon expertise. His wife was a year younger than him, only a civilian. She was a green-eyed brunette who had met Saboten in a weapon shop, assisting him in his purchases.

Sakura was their only pink-haired child, Kyo a brunette like his mother. It was expected the next child would be a brunette as well.

Without much more than a gentle smile, Saboten led Sakura to the doorway, scooping up a laughing Kyo in his scarred arms. He didn't smile as he held Kyo…

Sakura was none the wiser, happily taking her father's hand and jabbering on about her day with her mother and Kyo.

The night went smoothly, Ayame, the mother, had prepared a lovely dinner to celebrate her husband's safe return from the Village Hidden in the Mist. Sakura never noticed that her father was unable to crack a smile during the meal…

Before anyone realized it, it was night. Ayame was tucking her daughter into bed, having just done the same to Kyo. Lightly she kissed Sakura's forehead. "I love you Sakura…" she murmured, smiling softly at her first born.

"Mmm… Love you too mom," she sleepily replied, snuggling under her covers. She grinned as her mother gently caressed her face, sweeping her bangs behind her ear.

When her mom turned out the lights and softly closed the door behind her, Sakura stared out the window of her room. It didn't take her long to drift into a peaceful sleep.

Everything was right in her life; she was well on her way to becoming a ninja, her father was home, and she would soon have a little sister. Life was good…

Not even moments later, it seemed, Sakura was startled awake by the sound of crying and screaming. Quietly she tore herself from her bed, careful not to make a sound; good ninja were silent ninja…

Stealthily, she cracked open the door to her room, her emerald eyes scanning the hallway for any potential danger. She still heard the screaming, and finally deduced that it was her mother. The crying was Kyo.

She listened closely, wondering where her father was; he wouldn't let anyone hurt his family, so where was he? She wasn't hearing the tell-tale sounds that a burglar would make… The house was eerily quiet aside from the screaming.

With practiced steps, Sakura slowly, carefully, made her way to her parent's room; her mother's screams were coming from there… '_Where's daddy?'_

The small child was at her parent's door before she even realized it, working up the courage to see what was transpiring beyond the door.

Out of the blue, a contrast to the screaming, a dark laughter filled the house, chilling Sakura to the bone… _'Daddy?' _With the greatest hesitation she pushed open the door, trying her best not to be noticed; she failed.

"Sakura!" her mother shrieked weakly, shielding herself from the dark monster towering over her.

Sakura's little green eyes widened in fear, her heart pounding through her chest. "Daddy?!" she squeaked, tears streaking down her face. Her eyes dared to shoot from her maniacal father to her cowering mother whose clothing was stained with her own blood, the red substance covering her face as well.

"Saboten, don't you dare harm her!" cried Ayame, her crestfallen face gazing upon the dead body of her only son. "Do whatever you want to me, but don't do to her what you did to Kyo!" she demanded with what little strength she had left.

The grown shinobi laughed hollowly. "As if I would let harm befall my little Sakura," he cackled, standing over his wife in the most intimidating fashion.

Sakura took the moment to realize that her father's normally warm green eyes had turned a cold black. "Y-You're not papa!" screamed pink-haired child accusingly, feeling a surprising amount of confidence stir within her. The source, unknown, but she now felt as if she could take on anything. "Stop. Hurting. Mama!" she cried, running at the man with her little fists ready to strike him.

Her attempt was halted as Saboten gripped her shoulders, much like earlier that day. The tenderness surprised the child, but it did not stop her from struggling.

"And there it is," murmured the Genjutsu expert as a sick smile appeared on his face, his black eyes flashing in amusement as he stared into his daughter's own onyx gaze. "Your inner self has surfaced…"

**End Chapter**

A/N: If there's any confusion, everything will be answered later in the story. Keep in mind, this is just the prologue and is here to give you a little bit of foreword.

Let me know what you think-this'll be a pretty dark story, so don't expect everything to be sunshine and lollipops. I won't hear of it. ;)

Please review.

-Kaiso


	2. Chapter 1: A Bit of a Problem

A/N: I suppose that such a small amount of reviews was vaguely expected from the first chapter; it was, after all, the prologue. Hopefully my story will pick up more readers and reviewers soon. Trust me, the plot line is really good. I'm really excited for this story; I've been planning it for over a year. Maybe a change of the summary is in order, as it really doesn't explain anything…

Thank you to those that did review. I really appreciate your support so early in the story. I suppose the first chapter is the hardest to get through, mentally that is.

Please enjoy my next chapter. The story will now take place about eighteen years later. Sakura is now twenty-five.

**Chapter 1: A Bit of a Problem**

A bright light was flashing in her eye as she underwent her physical. Tsunade was checking her pupils to make sure that they were dilating accordingly; sight issues were starting to become prominent in shinobi, but this test was for a completely different reason.

"How do they look, Shishou?" questioned the pink-haired woman, doing her best to keep from squinting at the light's intensity.

The Hokage hummed negatively. "Not good Sakura…" she replied solemnly. "They are definitely getting worse… Are you absolutely sure that you aren't experiencing problems with your vision?"

The blonde removed the oppressive light, frowning as Sakura shook her head in the negative. "No, I'm seeing everything just fine. My sight hasn't diminished in the least," she confirmed worriedly. While this would not be considered horrible for most people, it seemed like a death sentence for the Haruno.

"It would seem that your Inner is readying itself…" commented the elderly woman, slamming her fist on the medical counter.

Tsunade was one of the few people that knew of her condition, Hinata being the only other. The fact was that Sakura's Inner, what her two confidants referred to as Inner Sakura, was beginning to consume her mind at a rapid pace. She had been fighting the progress of the supposed figment for eight years and was now starting to lose the battle to win her sanity.

The Haruno family was a cursed one with a dark secret that few knew about; the first born in each generation of Haruno was "gifted" with three things. One; pink hair, resulting from an odd mutation of pigments that only seemed to appear in the first born. Two; emerald eyes, a stark contrast to the pink hair. It was quite the coincidence that Sakura's mother had them as well… And three; the Inner Self, the unknown factor.

Genetics could not explain this phenomena… The Inner Self surfaced in the first born Haruno child at a young age that varied with each generation. For Sakura, that age was seven. At first, Inner Sakura was a defensive mechanism meant to protect the child until they reached age seventeen. Why that age? Another unknown factor, but it had been like that in every account Sakura had come upon. At seventeen, the Inner would turn on its host, destroying their mind in a slow, but sure, process. All this information Sakura learned from her father.

When ANBU black-ops came upon the scene of her mother and brother's murder, they were assaulted by her father who was unable to control himself; he fought his Inner Self for nine years before he finally lost control…

Saboten Haruno was thrown into Konoha's top mental hospital and had been there for the past eighteen years…

Upon her first visit with her father, at age thirteen when she started her medic training, she had asked him many questions, all through burning tears that contained her pent up fury.

"Why?" she demanded to know of him, her life miserable, even more so now that Sasuke had left the village. "Why didn't you kill me too?"

Saboten had chuckled darkly, very much so under the control of his Inner. Now at age forty-four, he had lost the fight for his sanity long ago.

"I cannot kill one of my own…" he had replied to her with a malicious smile, as if relishing in the fact that he had murdered his own family save for his pink-haired daughter. "Just as my father could not kill me… Soon, you will experience the same fate as all those before you, the fighting being what truly drives you to madness."

After that day, she had vowed never to visit him again. Unfortunately, when her Inner turned against her a short four years later, she went to him again, demanding information so that she might develop a cure. She had visited him every week since her seventeenth birthday, drilling him for information on her Inner no matter how redundant his answers were.

"There is no cure. Eventually you will succumb to the lunacy that has cursed us for centuries. I suggest you enjoy what little time there is for you…" he advised her, almost fatherly. She didn't acknowledge his warm tone at the time, and hasn't since; her father's rational died long ago… "My sanity lasted the longest out of all of the Harunos… Many hard years of fighting, but my Inner finally gained complete control upon the death of your mother and brother… This is the legacy that is left to you, Sakura…"

Those words shook her to the core every time she heard them, and even now, as she sat in the examination room, they haunted her very being. What she feared most was losing control… Seven years in her studies and she was no closer to finding a cure to her potential insanity…

"How have you been holding up mentally?" her mentor asked her, snapping her out of her reverie. "Has your Inner surfaced at all recently?"

The candy-haired medic nodded once, her soft face seemingly hardened by her long struggle. "My last mission," she reported ashamedly, wishing that she would have said something in her actual mission summary about it. "She got a bit out of hand when we came into contact with Oto-nin… It was a battle just to reign her in, and I was unable to do so before she completely massacred those shinobi…"

Tsunade was stunned to say the least. "Why didn't you put that in your report?" she questioned disappointedly. She could only ever be sympathetic; having Sakura end up in Konoha's mental hospital was the last thing she wanted…

Sakura's shoulders slumped in her own self-loathing. "I'm sorry. I should have said something…" she admitted, staring at the floor blankly.

The Godaime sighed, running a hand through her blonde locks in frustration. "Yeah, you really should have…" A drawn out silence filled the room, and after a minute of thought, Tsunade had come to a decision. "No more missions outside the village walls…" she ordered, feeling horrid as she witnessed Sakura nod her head in miserable compliance.

"I…I understand…" Without much more, she hopped off of the exam table and walked to the door, gripping the knob so hard that the metal became pliant under her grip. Just because she understood the reasoning did not mean that she couldn't be upset.

The brown-eyed woman released another sigh as she packed away her medical equipment. Without looking at her apprentice, she spoke softly. "You're going to go talk to Hinata, aren't you?"

The Haruno opened the door, stepping ever so slightly outside of the room. "While I know that you're against the idea, she's the only other person who I can trust my secret to. I know that you want to keep this whole thing hush-hush," Sakura murmured. She did as well… "And that's why I didn't go to Ino… She wouldn't be able to keep something of this magnitude quiet… While she doesn't necessarily understand what's happening to me, she is willing to listen, and that's what I need right now…"

Without allowing Tsunade another word, Sakura closed the door and walked off.

The blonde stared at the door as her old apprentice left. With one final, heavy sigh, she opened a cabinet beneath the medical table, pulling out a large bottle of sake. Not even bothering to pour herself a cup, she walked over to the examination table, laying on it and downing her worries in the strong drink.

Outside the hospital, one could spot a head of pink hair trying stealthily to exit the medical center. Right now, she didn't want to attract the attention of the nurses, her sole intention to get to the Hyuga compound without being noticed.

Her luck held out until she was walking past the hospital entrance gate, still trying to remain inconspicuous to everyone in the village. A Hyuga happened to be the first one to notice her, but of course it was her luck that it wasn't the Hyuga she was hoping to run into…

So busy was the kunoichi in trying to not attract attention that she didn't sense the other shinobi's approach until his hand firmly gripped her shoulder.

"Haruno, what do you think you're doing?" a certain Hyuga Neji asked disapprovingly. "You look ridiculous…"

The way she jumped at his voice told him that he was lucky that she didn't punch his lights out; Haruno Sakura was one who did not like to be surprised…

Seeing it was Hinata's cousin, Sakura calmed slightly, still highly on edge. "Oh… Hyuga-san… I'm… um…"

"Spit it out Haruno…" he ordered, removing his hand from her shoulder. Even after knowing her for thirteen years, she was still just as jumpy and annoying as she had always been.

At the rude comment she regained her composure, giving the Hyuga branch member a glare that would have had even the most fearsome shinobi either flinching or running for the hills. This was not a time that Haruno Sakura was in the mood to deal with unbearable pricks…

"I'm on my way to visit Hinata, for your information," she retorted venomously, her emerald eyes darkening.

Realization donned on her as she noted the shift in her behavior. "Shit!" she hissed, covering her eyes with her fingers as she felt the tug on her mind. "Sorry!" she exclaimed before dashing off as quickly as she could, using her kunoichi training to avoid running into civilians now that she was intentionally without her eyesight.

Shocked at the rosette medic's audacity, the Hyuga glared at her retreating form before giving chase to the disrespectful woman.

Surprised would be an understatement when he lost sight of her in a large crowd of people; it was as if she had just disappeared, and he had a feeling that even with his Byakugan, he wouldn't be able to find her before she reached the compound.

That thought ingrained into his mind, the ANBU captain made his way back to the Hyuga quarters, having had other plans but suddenly finding that he was far more interested in the current scenario.

Sakura had completely bypassed the Hyuga compound guards without being noticed ("So much for all seeing eyes…" she had muttered as she ran through the building's halls.), winding up in Hinata's room without having encountered a single soul.

Hinata wasn't surprised when her friend appeared in her room as if from nowhere, no, she was surprised that the kunoichi was winded and was hiding her eyes from her view.

"Sakura?" the timid girl whispered, fearing that Sakura would be set off at the slightest of sounds. "Are you okay?"

The amount of relief that coursed through the heiress' veins was nearly overwhelming as Sakura removed her hand from her eyes, revealing that they were, in fact, back to normal, not that Hinata would have known that they weren't earlier.

"No," she finally replied, walking over to Hinata's futon and collapsing upon it, tears leaking from her eyes. "It's getting worse Hinata… I don't think I'll find a cure in time…"

The opal-eyed kunoichi gasped in disapproval. "Don't say that!" she chided, taking a seat next to her on the futon. "Tell me what happened at the examination…"

The orphaned girl let out a shaky breath. "I don't think I can keep doing this Hinata," she admitted, avoiding the subject momentarily. "Maybe I should just end things before it gets worse…"

Hinata shook her head vigorously. "Don't say things like that," she repeated, her voice firm. "If you quit now, you have no chance of curing it… Now what happened?"

Sakura sat up abruptly, looking down at her hands in her lap. "Tsunade-shishou gave me an eye examination; that's all she needed to do…"

"And?" prodded the society kunoichi.

"My pupils weren't dilating correctly," she answered. "I'm seeing things just fine, so we knew that my Inner was the cause… I almost lost control permanently on my last mission because of her…"

"Have you spoken with your father recently?" she asked, concerned. While Hinata knew what Sakura's father had done eighteen years ago, she also knew that any answers that Sakura could hope to receive would come from him.

The rosette groaned, trying to stop her tears. "Speaking with him is like listening to a broken record. He keeps telling me the same thing over and over again…"

"Keep trying," her confidant urged. "Maybe he'll eventually tell you something useful…"

The medic-nin nodded. "That's why I keep going to see him, but I'm running out of time…"

Hinata took Sakura's hand in hers, grasping it reassuringly, unable to think of anything that could possibly help her friend in any way.

Sakura smiled gratefully at the Hyuga heiress, taking one of her hands away to wipe away a tear with her sleeve.

"Are you going to see him next?"

The distraught kunoichi nodded. "It's been a week… And I need information… I just don't think I'll have the energy to deal with him…" she confessed, holding her free hand to her forehead in an effort to calm her nerves.

"Can't someone else talk to him to get the information you need?" Hinata asked innocently, cocking her head to the side in curiosity.

The candy-haired kunoichi shook her head with a sigh. "You know no one can… I'm the only one he can talk to... Or will talk to, I should say…" she corrected herself. "No amount of interrogation will get anything from him thanks to…you know…" She couldn't even bring herself to say it anymore, knowing that doing so would only prove to aggravate her further.

Now that she had said what she had come to report, Sakura stood from the futon, making sure that there were no remnants of tears on her face. "I'll come see you tomorrow if you're free… I won't be taking any missions outside the village anymore anyways…"

Hinata nodded in understanding. "I'll see you tomorrow. Perhaps for lunch?" she invited with a smile, knowing that her friend would accept without question.

Sakura nodded, giving the Hyuga a small, solemn smile. "Yeah… See you tomorrow…" With nothing more than that, Sakura exited Hinata's room through her window, dropping to the grass with nigh a sound and making her exit as stealthy as she possibly could.

As soon as she was sure Sakura was gone, Hinata strode purposefully to her bedroom screen, sliding it open with as much force as could be used on a paper screen, coming face to face with her dear cousin.

She glared at him for eavesdropping; Sakura wasn't the only one getting something out of their time together. By far, she was more outgoing and outspoken, her stutter long gone. "Something the matter, Neji?" she questioned, folding her arms over her well-developed chest.

The older Hyuga narrowed his own eyes at her, not in the least bit intimidated after having been stared down by the Haruno earlier. "What was that all about?"

Hinata shook her head, her eyes softening as she realized that her cousin was simply trying to show concern in the only way he knew how.

"It's not my story to tell," she eventually replied solemnly. "I'm sure that Sakura would not appreciate me telling you about her problems, no matter how much you may have overheard…"

Without another word, she returned to her room, keeping her eyes downcast as she closed the paper door to her room, letting out a sigh as she did so.

For a few moments more, Neji remained where he was, staring at the old paper that made up many of the doors in compound. Suddenly, resolution came to his eyes, and with determination he strode away, his mind set in finding the pink-haired girl that had just escaped his attention.

He was surprisingly curious under the circumstances; he was genuinely shocked at the interest he was unexpectedly taking in the Haruno. Never before had he found anything remotely interesting about the prodigious medic, but he had also never taken the time to look past her seemingly annoying personality. Maybe he would get something out of this experience as well…

'_It seems that Haruno has a bit of a problem…And I find myself pressed to know what it is…'_

In actuality, he hadn't heard all that much about her situation; it was as if they had both known he was standing there and had opted to leave out any important details in order to keep him in the dark.

He had heard mention of her father, but nothing more than that. He hadn't even known she had family, a foolish assumption on his part, but he had never seen anyone remotely similar in appearance to the carnation haired kunoichi in the village. Perhaps they lived outside the village…

Many theories crossed his mind, though none of them were even vaguely close to being factual.

It never crossed his mind that her mother was dead and her father was rotting away in a cushioned room that sucked his chakra dry…

**End Chapter**

A/N: So? Anything remotely close to what you were expecting after that prologue? I'm going to try to keep the chapters pretty long and give as much detail as I can. Hopefully I won't lose anyone along the way. :P

I have high hopes for this story, and I sincerely hope it gains a bit more of a following. Much love! ^.^ Please review!

-Kaiso


	3. A Hyuga's Curiosity

A/N: Yay! I'm so happy that I'm getting more reviews! It makes me feel a lot better about posting this story, knowing that people will actually read and review. I'm happy with starting with a five for the "first" chapter, and hopefully I'll gain more of a following as I keep writing.

Thanks to all that did review, and please enjoy this next installment. :P

**Chapter 2: A Hyuga's Curiosity**

Before stopping at Konoha's hospital for the mentally ill, Sakura made a quick detour to her apartment. She needed to grab her notebook; she always had it when she talked with her father. It was a way to keep track of the information he unwillingly bestowed upon her.

Her game plan was simple; review everything she had asked Haruno Saboten up to this point. Perhaps, she figured, she was taking the wrong approach by asking her questions so sporadically. Normally, she would ask what came to mind, and her mental father would talk her in circles for a good hour. Maybe asking all of her questions at once would help her piece together a cure, or at least a clue to one.

As she walked through the branch hospital's doors, she was greeted by unhappy nurses, all run ragged by their patients. She didn't require an appointment, or even a pass; she had been here so often in the past eight years, hundreds of times, that no one felt the need to question her as she walked the route to her father's room. Certainly, being head medic over at the main hospital was another factor…

She was standing before his door before she had mentally prepared herself; she always had a habit of hoping for the best, that maybe this next time she talked with him she would find the answers she was looking for. She always had to talk herself down, always had to tell herself not to get her hopes up…

Her father always seemed to sense her presence before she opened the door; he was always so focused on the spot that she would enter from when she opened the door. As of now, she had yet to ask him why…

"How do you do that?" she muttered, closing the door behind her and walking over to sit on the ground in front of him; no chair allowed, the nurses said, or else they could do damage to themselves or the staff.

His permanently black eyes stared into her green ones, completely devoid of emotion.

"An Inner can sense another Inner," he replied simply, a smirk appearing on his wrinkling face.

She chuckled without humor. "That's the most straightforward answer I've gotten out of you in eight years of visits…"

Saboten shrugged simply, not bothering to reply to her remark.

"The straight jacket is a nice touch…" she stated as she looked him over. She had been wondering why the staff had not thought to give him one sooner; he was prone to attacking those who entered his room…except for her.

He hummed in agreement. "Yes… You would have thought that they would have put me in one sooner, but it seems that the nurses need to be strangled a few hundred times before they get the message…"

The bluntness of his answer shocked and disgusted her; she could only be thankful that he hadn't killed anyone yet like he had the rest of her family.

"I see you're still fighting it…" he eventually stated with disdain, shaking his head in disapproval. "You should just embrace the madness…"

The female rosette glared at the man before her. "My reply to that is the same as it was last week; I will fight this until it consumes me completely."

"I said that once…" he murmured, his eyes twinkling in an almost evil way. "It wasn't long after that that I accepted insanity… It's much more freeing."

"You sound pretty sane at the moment," she noted, her bitter feelings coming to the surface. "You always seem relatively sane when we talk…"

"That is the effect that another Inner has on me…" he replied, scratching his silvering hair absently. "A slight lapse in insanity. I will be back to normal as soon as you walk out of this building."

"Normality is relative…" she hissed at him, her body tense.

"And so is insanity…"

'_Touché…'_ she noted in her mind almost bitterly. Her silence spoke volumes to Saboten; it told him that she knew he was right… Yet she was still going to do everything in her power to prove him wrong…

After a prolonged silence, in which her mind was reeling already from just five minutes with her father, she knew that she would have to continue asking questions if she wanted any hope of a straight answer.

"Why didn't you kill me?" she asked with as much neutrality as she could. Inside, her emotions were going haywire, as they always did when she came across the tender subject.

The ex-shinobi leaned back against the cushioned wall, unable to do much more than that considering his restrainments. "An Inner cannot kill another Inner," he replied in a variation of his answer.

"And the rest of the family didn't have them?" she questioned, doing her best to keep the rage out of her voice.

"Nope," he replied simply, a grin on his face. "Not even the infant in your mother's womb." He seemed to relish the fact that he had mercilessly slaughtered the rest of his family.

"How can you have no remorse for what you did?!" she demanded to know, unable to keep the anger out any longer.

He shrugged his shoulders, the only movement he could really accomplish under his current duress. "I feel nothing but excitement when I see the light about to leave someone's eyes," he answered dreamily, as if thinking back to the near murders of the staff, or the slaughter of the Haruno family. "It's a wonder that I've retained the capability of feeling anything else at all when everything else dulls in comparison."

"You're a monster!" she viciously declared, unable to contain her emotions any longer as she stood, her body shaking in fury.

"And you'd kill me if you could," he replied, unfazed by her accusation. "I can see it in your eyes. But keep in mind that you will suffer the same fate, sooner than you may think or want to accept…"

She let his reply hang in the air as she stormed out of the room, the reaction she had left in every time she entered the facility.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Saboten simply smiled, counting down the seconds until he could return to madness. His final rational thought for the week was that his daughter had forgotten her notebook…

Her brisk walk through the halls of the mental hospital warned others to stay away from her; all staff knew that Haruno Sakura was not to be disturbed upon exiting her father's room lest they get punched through a wall… Most of the staff learned that the hard way…

No one knew the story behind Haruno Saboten's residence in the facility, and if they did, no one spoke of it. It was a matter of classified information that only the higher ups, meaning Tsunade, knew about, and no amount of digging around would turn anything up on the Haruno's background, and Sakura preferred to keep it that way.

When she pushed open the doors of the exit, she nearly knocked them off their hinges. All she wanted to do now was chronicle her information, go home, and cry, but her pride wouldn't allow her to do anything but the first two. No, instead of crying, she would go home and devise a cure. There was no way in Hell that she would let herself cry now…

So lost in her thoughts was she that she didn't notice a certain Hyuga coming up behind her for the second time that day.

"I always knew you were a little off…" he sneered, stopping her in her tracks. He noted that her body went rigid and her hands were curled up into fists. She obviously didn't expect anyone she knew to be walking around this area of the village…

She didn't turn around or even acknowledge him before she walked on, seemingly determined to not have a confrontation.

But being the Hyuga that he was, Neji couldn't let her behavior slide… He caught up to her in a few simple strides, grabbing her arm and dragging her into an empty alleyway so that he could have the confrontation that he so dearly wanted.

She glared at him with such an intensity that he could have sworn her eyes had gone black, but he ignored it, attributing it to the dark lighting in the alley.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll drop the matter Hyuga," she bit out coldly, wrenching her arm from his grip. "I'm not above using my medic training to knock you out in a cold alleyway where any number of people could find you…"

Her threat did nothing to stem the Hyuga's curiosity. "Why were you in the mental hospital Haruno?" he questioned, seemingly unfazed by her warning. He would find out what he wanted to know, otherwise it would bother him until he did.

"I'm not even going to gift that question with an answer." She turned and made to walk away, clenching and unclenching her fists in order to alleviate some of her pent up frustration.

Seeing her enter and exit the hospital earlier had confused him beyond reason; he had thought she was going to visit her father, not make rounds at an out of the way mental house. Of course, he would say nothing on the matter, for he honestly had no wish to be accused of eavesdropping for the second time that day…

He moved to block her escape, folding his arms over his chest and fixing her with an intimidating glare, but she would not be fazed.

"Get out of my way you jackass!" she demanded, stopping her foot angrily and unknowingly creating a decent sized crater in the ground. She tried to go around him, only to have him move in front of her again.

"Not until you tell me what you were doing there," he replied, unfazed by her outburst. She was being childish in his mind, but he had to wonder what was causing such intense irritation within her small frame…

"I don't have to tell you anything! Now move your ass before I move it for you!"

He tutted reproachfully. "That sort of language is not appealing in a woman of your standing," he reprimanded sarcastically. He knew that she would continue to say whatever she wanted.

"What do I have to do to make you get out of my way?" she demanded to know in frustration, only wanting to seriously harm him as a last resort.

"Tell me what I want to know and I'll move," he stated simply, his mind unchanged.

She let out a frustrated sigh, resigning herself to giving in lest she lose control. "Just…"

He quirked an eyebrow at her sudden demureness. "Just what?" he enquired, now that she was slightly more agreeable.

"Why do you even want to know?" she asked, holding her arms and looking at the ground in a moment of self-consciousness. The change was definitely drastic.

"Simple curiosity," he replied honestly. "If it is such an issue, then you have my word that I will not speak of this to anyone." She seemed embarrassed by what she was hiding…

She caught his look, knowing what he was thinking. "I am not embarrassed about my secret, you know…" she told him. "It's not embarrassment that's the issue. It's the sympathy that people feel the need to smother me with… I don't need it."

Now that was shocking… As long as he'd known her, she always seemed to be looking for sympathy… Or maybe he was judging her based on what had happened with the Uchiha… "I assure you, you will receive none of that from me…" he told her, unsure if he would be able to keep that promise if her secret was as bad as she was making it sound.

She let out another sigh; it seemed that it was what everyone was doing that day… "I was visiting my father… He's been under the care of Konoha's mental hospital since I was seven… Eighteen years…" she revealed slowly, unsure of giving that sort of information to the ANBU captain. "Now can I go? I just really want to go home right now…"

She moved to go around him, but he blocked her way again. She shot him a disbelieving look. "I told you what you wanted to know!" she yelled at him, trying to force her way through, unsuccessful when he grabbed her by the shoulders. Tears were threatening to spill from her eyes out of overwhelming frustration.

"Why is he there?" he asked, unable to help asking the blunt, almost obvious question.

She looked at him as if he were stupid, though the effect was lost by the tears coming from her eyes. "He sick in the head," she stated bitterly, her eyes becoming clouded in what he could only assume was in remembrance of her recent encounter with the man. "Isn't that the reason why most mental patients are there?"

Again she tried to move around him, only to be met with the obstacle that was Hyuga Neji.

"You're not leaving until I obtain full understanding of this matter," he told her firmly. While this was not normal behavior befitting a Hyuga, or a shinobi of his caliber for that matter, his curiosity could not be sated with such a simple answer. While it may be considered childish to have such high interest in this matter, he honestly couldn't help it.

"Well you can just keep holding your breath because in order to fully understand the situation I would have to tell you, and I'm not willing to do that when I barely know you."

"You've known me for thirteen years," he shot back, unwilling to let her go that easily.

"But not on a level that I'm willing to tell you that! How do I know you won't exploit me after you get this information?" she demanded to know, overly paranoid. Deep inside, she knew that Neji was not capable to doing that, to her at least; she was truly suffering, even he could see that, and he was not one to kick someone while they were down unless he truly despised them.

"Is that information truly worth exploiting you with?" he asked with a sigh. "You seem awfully full of yourself Haruno…"

"I'm not telling you anything more!"

A smirk appeared on his face. "How about this then; we have a match at Team Seven's old training grounds. I win, you tell me what I want to know."

She shook her head defiantly. "No deal, because there is nothing worth obtaining from you if I win…" She didn't intend to be mean, but it was the truth; nothing is worth having when you have lost everything… "Now if you'll excuse me…"

Once more he went to block her, but she had had enough. He was persistent, how fan-fucking-tastic for her on a day like today, and she had no desire to deal with him. Screw saving it for a last resort, he had trampled her last nerve…

"I warned you earlier, but you wouldn't listen…" she said, cracking her knuckles. "Move, or fly two-hundred feet into a brick wall. Your choice."

Seeing she was completely serious, he found it best to step out of her way, for now at least. He was not above self-preservation in times like this.

"Very well," he conceded, a stubborn look on his face. "But be aware, Haruno, this isn't over."

She ignored his warning as she stepped past him; she had better things to do today than dealing with the insufferable prick. Honestly, she had no idea how Hinata dealt with him.

He watched her until she was out of sight, walking out of the alley to stand in front of the mental facility. Awfully the impulsive one today, he decided to enter the building, standing before the front desk in a matter of minutes.

"Hello, sir," greeted a secretary. "How may I help you?" she asked dully. She seemed miserable, the highlight of her day having been a pink-haired kunoichi storming out of the building in a fit of rage.

"I'm looking for…Haruno…" he replied, unsure if he would even be allowed entry without knowing her father's first name.

The secretary suddenly appeared interested. "Haruno? I don't think so, sir. I'm afraid he isn't allowed visitors," she informed him worriedly.

'_Think Hyuga!'_ Even without thought, he was able to come up with the perfect alibi. "I just spoke with his daughter outside the building. Haruno Sakura," he specified. "She allowed me clearance." She never said he couldn't find his information elsewhere. Damn curiosity!

"Sakura?" Now the secretary seemed confused. "Why would she do that?" That was as far as she pushed the matter; she didn't suspect a thing. No one else ever came to visit Haruno Saboten, and the nurses had to draw straws in order to decide who would attend him for the day. "Oh well… If Sakura allowed you access… I assume she informed you of the risks?"

'_Risks? Fuck…'_ "Yes, of course."

She nodded. "Very well. Room C15. We can't keep our most dangerous patients on the ground floor, now can we?"

He nodded, a small, forced, smile on his face. Inwardly, he was berating himself for allowing his curiosity to get the better of him… He knew nothing about her father, or why, for that matter, he was in the hospital specifically. Now hearing that he was dangerous, he knew that he really should have thought this plan out more thoroughly…

He was standing outside C15 before he knew it; the door was completely solid wood, lacking a window to see inside. Of course, that was no issue for one with a Byakugan. Before he activated his bloodline, he noted the disturbing laughter coming from the room. Thankfully, now that he could actually see the Haruno, he could tell that Sakura's father was restrained in a straight jacket.

Slowly, he reached to grab the door knob, his hand freezing in mid-air when he saw the man cease his laughter in favor of turning to stare at the door, as if looking right through it and directly into the Hyuga's eyes…

**End Chapter**

A/N: Well, I leave you all with a cliffhanger. I'm incorporating Sakura's father a bit more, trying to allow you guys to get a feel for his madness. It's a bit hard, trying to write about the behavior of a madman, so please, bear with me here.

Much love! Please review! I need the momentum to build!

-Kaiso


	4. Two Months Equals Surprises

A/N: Yo! Well, I'm happy to say that my story is beginning to gain more readers! That, in turn, makes me more confident and willing to post updates! I think that this is the most I've written in a certain amount of time. Anyone that also stuck with me for "To Turn a Raging Tide of Cherry Blossoms" knows that it would take me months at a time to update, whereas now I'm updating every few days. It makes me feel productive.

Anyway, thanks for all your support, and please enjoy this next chapter!

**Chapter 3: Two Months Equals Surprises**

Having an insane man stare you in the eye is a disturbing thing, even when he is unaware of your existence… Frozen in place, all Neji could do was return the solid stare, continuously reminding himself that the ex-shinobi couldn't see him.

Getting a hold of his nerves, the Hyuga grasped the door knob, which he found did nothing to help his confidence…

A sudden clicking of heels on the tiles in the hall alerted him to another's presence, a welcome distraction when his only other option was to open the door to the patient's room. Hopefully a nurse could talk him out of this stupid, uncharacteristic-of-a-Hyuga, idea. What he didn't expect to see was a head of pink hair to round the corner.

'_Oh, fuck…' _He was caught…

"Hyuga! What the Hell do you think you're doing?!" she demanded to know as soon as she locked eyes with him. "Who gave you permission to come up here?"

He crossed his arms over his chest, locking away all thoughts of nervousness and deactivating his Byakugan. "As far as the nurses and secretaries are concerned, you did," he replied evenly. "I wanted to know more, and since you wouldn't tell me anything, I determined that the only source I could go to was your father."

No matter how much she wanted to be, Sakura was too tired to be angry with him. With a sigh, she told him, "You wouldn't have gotten anything out of him… He only talks to me," knowing that as she said it he didn't believe her.

"How convenient for you, Haruno," he sneered, disbelief written plainly on his face. "Does that excuse work on everyone, or just the morons you associate with?"

Again, being too tired for another confrontation, she didn't rise to his bait. "You can see for yourself, but trust me, it will be as if you aren't even there…"

She gripped the knob without any of the hesitation that he had exhibited earlier, opening the door and locking her emerald gaze with that of her father's onyx one.

"How lucky I must be," the older Haruno cackled sadistically. "Two visits in one day."

As she had stated out in the hall, Saboten didn't even look his way, much to his chagrin and, surprisingly, relief. Having the attention of a mad man was highly unnerving, and he was inwardly amazed at how Sakura kept her composure.

"Trust me," she replied, acid in her voice. "If I could help it, I wouldn't come back here… I left my notes behind…"

The pink-haired man's eyes flickered from his daughter to the small tablet lying just a couple feet from him. "Ah, yes… Your 'cure'…" he muttered with disdain. "If I am correct, you don't even need that stupid book… You've committed everything in it to memory, if I know you as well as I do…"

As Sakura crouched down to pick up her notebook, Saboten's gaze never left her form, of which Neji was all too perfectly aware.

"I still don't understand why you fight it…" commented the Haruno with a shrug. "It's so much easier to give in…"

In response to Saboten's comment, Sakura turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, pushing the Hyuga in front of her and slamming the door as they passed into the hall. When she tried to storm away from Neji, he grabbed her by the arm and walked with her until they were out of the building.

As soon as they were a suitable distance from the hospital, he whipped her around to face him, and stern look on his face. "What was he talking about?"

She tried to pull away, saying "Be more specific, Hyuga," as she attempted to regain her arm. Unfortunately for her, he held firm this time.

"You know what I'm referring to…" he bit out, subjecting her to one of his fiercest glares. Of course, she was immune to its effects, having mastered the art of glaring long before she entered into her twenties. "This so called 'cure' for this unknown ailment. And just what does he expect you to give in to?"

Her gaze shifted to the ground, as if ashamed of what he was accusing her of. "I…I…"

"You what?" he demanded of her, holding her firmly in place. "What are you hiding, Sakura?"

Her eyes were shifty, making sure that no one else would see or hear her now that Neji was forcing her answer from her.

He shook her slightly, as if to gain her attention, but deep down inside he knew that it was because of his own impatience. Never before had his curiosity consumed him to such a degree, and it was at such a point that it was beginning to scare him… "What is it?!"

"I…I…" she stuttered, surpassing even Hinata at her worst. To avoid answering, she attempted to bolt again, only to fail as Neji's bruising grip held her in place.

"You will not leave until you tell me just what exactly is going on with you Sakura!"

"I…I'm…" She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, but even this stress relief measure didn't seem to help much. "I'm…losing my mind…"

"What?"

"No, I'm…" Another sigh, as she realized that he thought she was joking. "I'm quite literally going insane… I… I don't have much time before I end up…end up like my father…" After a moment of silence, in which the Hyuga stared intently into her emerald eyes, she took the opportunity to wrench herself from his iron grip. "Happy now? Now you know that Haruno Sakura is officially a basket case."

Before he could even fully register her words, she had run off, lost through the crowd like she had been earlier that morning. He grunted in frustration that she had left before he had allowed her to do so, but figured that now that he had obtained what he wanted from her, he could soon forget about the pink-haired spitfire and all remnants of his curiosity would simply ebb away.

He couldn't have been more wrong…

It would be two months before he would see Sakura again; he soon discovered after his encounter with her that Tsunade had taken her off of the shinobi roster, at least for the outside missions and that's when it finally hit him that Sakura was not lying about her condition. After that day, he had Hinata explain everything about her mental shut down, none the wiser when she left out all details about Haruno Saboten homicidal rage.

No matter what he seemed to do, his assumptions in regards to his ever present curiosity were dead wrong; it was still there, and stronger than ever. So many different questions were running through his head; why was she so concerned with people knowing? How long did she have? How bad was her condition?

Of course, these thoughts plagued him, even on missions when they were at their most inconvenient. They posed quite the distraction, and that is how, in fact, he ended up seeing Sakura again after their two month separation. Much to his frustration, he was now in Konoha's hospital with Sakura as his attending doctor and nurse…

She didn't speak to him at all when she entered the room, didn't even acknowledge him. While under normal circumstances he would have preferred the silence, it didn't sit well with him today, with her especially. He finally tried to break said silence when she grabbed his recovery chart.

"Low on staff today?" he casually asked, feeling quite stupid when she didn't even bother to answer his question.

She seemed to focus in on his file, reading what had brought him there out loud. "Collapsed lung, fractured wrist, broken collar bone, and multiple superficial flesh wounds…" Setting the chart down on her medical stationary, she quickly put her mid-back length hair up and out of her face. Finally, she allowed her gaze to land on him, assessing his injuries in order to ensure that the report was accurate.

The cold look in her eyes was not lost on him as she looked him over; he could tell she was extremely bitter about what he had forced out of her just two months ago, and he doubted that she would forgive him for it anytime soon… For some reason, he couldn't bear to think that.

As soon as he had been brought in, he had been stabilized, as his condition had been far worse originally that what it was currently, and jacked up with morphine. He felt nothing, and therefore could freely focus his attention elsewhere.

When her hands started glowing from the concentration of her healing chakra, he couldn't help making a snide remark; really, his Hyuga heritage would get him killed one day… "Are you sure that you are stable enough to perform healing jutsu on my person?"

She fixed him with hard look, one that surprised him on multiple levels. The most shocking thing, he noted, was that her eyes were void of any sort of emotion; she had hidden her feelings well.

"If you weren't already hurt, I would slug you for such a comment…" she threatened coldly. "If all you are going to do is insult me, I will gladly leave you here until your morphine wears off… I have more important patients to see to…"

Vaguely he wondered who exactly could be more important than him at the moment, but he did as she said and stopped talking, knowing that his mouth would only get him into trouble; he was currently vulnerable in the hospital, under the care of a highly irritable, and as far as he knew unstable, Sakura Haruno. It would not be wise to enrage her.

There were many things that he was wanting to ask her, for he could only obtain so much information from Hinata, but he knew that after their last encounter, the last thing that she would want to do would be to tell him anything about her…

Before he knew it, he was completely fixed up, all of his flesh wounds knitted together and his lung inflated again. There would be no scarring whatsoever, and while he wanted to thank her for her work in an effort to diffuse her anger, he knew that it would do nothing in the least.

Before she left, she turned and picked a sheet of paper out of his file, signing her name at the bottom. She handed the paper to him, explaining its use as if he'd never been in the hospital before. "Here are your discharge papers. I've signed them, so you have no need to bother me again today… Now if you'll excuse me, I have other patients to attend to."

She was gone before he could respond to her comment, his door closing surprisingly without being slammed. She had a professional image to uphold, he supposed.

Without much more thought on the issue, he removed himself from the hospital bed, finding his personal clothes on a chair in the corner. He just now realized that he had been put into a medical robe, if it could even be called that…

When he was completely changed, from his bandages to cover his cursed mark to his hitai-ate, he stepped out of his room and proceeded to walk down the halls of the main hospital, easily becoming disoriented and ending up in the children's ward.

He was stopped from turning around and walking away by the sound of laughter filling the ward, finding himself unable to move when he discovered the laughter was coming from a certain Haruno Sakura who had been threatening him just minutes ago.

Just seconds after hearing what he could only describe as her enchanting laugh, he saw her running through the area being tailed by at least a dozen young children, all laughing along with her. He knew that she could easily outrun them with her shinobi training, but she allowed the sickly children to catch her as soon as they entered the play area. The sight of it struck something within him, and he just couldn't bring himself to look away.

"Neechan!" they all exclaimed, running up to give her hugs as soon as she was caught.

He made sure to keep out of her sight, not wanting to disrupt her good mood while it lasted. It was kind of nice to see her so happy…

"Sakura-neechan, I'm so happy that you don't have to go on anymore missions!" one small boy told her, tugging on her hand with a smile. "You can spend more time with us now!"

She responded to his comment by laughing and hugging the small boy close. Many of the other children agreed with him, happily chattering about how their neechan would always be there now. She didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise.

"So what do we want to do today?" she asked them once the hype had started to wear off. "Do we want to read a story?"

Neji almost laughed when he saw the looks of disappointment on every child's face. "No!" one exclaimed, a girl who was pouting ever so slightly. "We want to see your jutsu neechan!"

Sakura giggled good-naturedly. "You ask me that every time, and I always have to say no," she told them regretfully. "Some of your parents wouldn't approve of me showing you my jutsu."

"So?" a couple complained while the rest groaned unhappily. "We don't care! They aren't even here!"

The pinkette appeared to be thinking it over before she finally made any sort of comment. "Will it make you all happy?" she asked them, serious in her question. Seeing the determined looks on their faces as they nodded, she knew that she couldn't deny them any longer; half of these children were terminal, as she considered herself to be, and the other's were extremely sick, but had the hope of getting better. She finally decided it was the appropriate time to give in to their pleas. "Alright," she allowed with a smile. "What do you say we go outside and I can show you everything you want to see, okay?"

The crowd of children broke out into cheers as they followed her outside of the children's ward. Neji took care not to be noticed as he followed them outside into what appeared to be a peaceful courtyard for the patients.

No one dared reprimand Sakura for her actions; she was the head medic of the hospital and had the authorization to do whatever she deemed relevant to a patient's recovery. Under normal circumstances, the children wouldn't have been allowed outside, but since Sakura was with them, no one interfered with their little field trip.

As soon as they were all outside, she had them sit in a group, legs crossed, as she stood at the front, removing her doctor's coat. "What do you want to see?" she asked them, having no idea where to start.

One small boy said softly, "I heard that you're really strong, neechan…", a bit embarrassed at being the first one to say something.

When Sakura chuckled at his statement, he blushed but smiled sheepishly. "Well whomever you heard that from was correct."

She looked about, trying to find something adequate enough to lift without disturbing the courtyard. Her eyes scanned the yard, landing on a fallen tree, completely solid and obviously heavy. Walking purposefully to the tree, she wrapped her arms around it and lifted with her legs, amazing the small group as she carried it over to them and gently laying it on the ground, using it as a chair so that she might sit during her demonstration.

All of the children clapped in astonishment, cheering for their pink-haired doctor, a few coughs peppered into the merriment.

A tiny girl raised her hand politely, waiting for Sakura to call on her.

"Yes Mimi?"

Mimi beamed happily. "Can you summon animals?" she asked innocently, her big blue eyes full of curiosity. She had heard that some ninja could summon animals and had decided that if she ever became a ninja, summoning would be the first thing she would learn.

'_Of course she doesn't…'_ the Hyuga thought, standing out of sight but well within hearing range.

When Sakura nodded with a smile, Neji had to control his jaw's urge to drop; he had never heard anything about the Haruno being able to use a summoning jutsu.

Every child in the courtyard got quiet, starring on in wonder as their favorite doctor bit into her thumb, drawing blood. Many of them were tempted to try it.

As if reading their thoughts, Sakura warned them, "If I see any of you attempt this, I won't show you anymore jutsu,", effectively preventing an outbreak of bloody thumbs. After receiving their disappointed nods of agreement, she slapped her hand against the bark of the tree in the spot next to her. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

The young group ooed and awed as a pop sounded when Sakura removed her hand, smoke clouding the area. When the air had cleared, a majestic looking cheetah was sitting at Sakura's side, overlooking the crowd of children with cautious eyes.

"Everyone, this is Kima," she introduced, looking to her friend with a smile. "Kima is one of the summons from my summoning contract. Say hello Kima."

Kima bowed his head ever so slightly. "A pleasure, young ones," he greeted with a feline grin, stunning the group of children. Yes, to the amazement of the young children, he could talk, and quite well at that. "Sakura-hime talks about you constantly." With little more than that to say, the big cat stood and jumped from his place on the tree to lay amongst the kids, tolerating the tugging on his tail and the stroking of his fur with minimal effort.

"Change into one of us!" on child exclaimed, easily getting the others to back him up.

With a smile, Sakura did as was requested of her and used a henge to transform into little Mimi, smiling as the small girl blushed happily. When she was certain that the kids had gotten the point of her henge, she changed back, bowing her head.

When the children started cheering again, Sakura smiled, but when she heard heavy coughing from numerous kids, she decided that it was time for them to go back inside. "Okay, we've had our fun, now let's go back to the play area and read before you all need to rest up," she told them, trying not to show her sadness when they all had looks of disappointment on their faces. "I can always show you more jutsu later, okay?"

Her compromise worked as she had intended, getting them to instantly agree with her request and line up to return inside. Dismissing Kima just as suddenly as she had summoned him, she quickly led the children back into the hospital.

Again, the Hyuga tailed them, intent on keeping the pink-haired medic within his sights. He listened as she read them a story about knights and their chivalry, watched on as she tucked them into their hospital beds, and observed her expression as she left every one of them behind; it devastated her to be away from them.

He determined that this was the end of her shift, because as soon as she left the final child, she turned in her doctor's coat and gave her reports to her colleagues just coming in to take her place.

He followed her outside again, this time through the hospital exit, and this time deciding that he no longer wanted to hide his presence from her.

"You…You have quite a way with them…" he muttered loud enough for her to hear, stopping her in her tracks as he had done so many times before. "You really know how to bring smiles to their faces."

After a moment, she turned to regard him, his tone and silence afterwards telling her that he was not trying to offend her this time around. "I understand them…"she replied. "We share similar characteristics, even though many of theirs will end in death…" Her voice was solemn, in pure agony imagining any one of those children dying.

"If anyone can cure them, you can," he offered honestly, knowing that she was a true genius in her field of work.

She simply chuckled without humor at his comment. Between finding a cure for them and herself, very little was being accomplished in means of progress. "Was there a reason for this confrontation? Because quite honestly, I have another round to make…" She let the statement hang; she knew that he knew where she was going…

When he said nothing for the longest time, she turned to walk away, becoming a bit annoyed when she was stopped again by his voice. "Spar with me tomorrow…" he told her, leaving little room for argument. Being Haruno Sakura, she could have found the little bit of room and used it to her advantage, but at the moment, she didn't have enough of the will to argue, instead nodding her head enough to where he could see her agreement.

"Where?" she asked quietly.

"Team Seven's old training grounds. Eleven o'clock. Afterwards, we can go to lunch."

With a sigh, she nodded her head again; the Hyuga was full of surprises, she supposed. She had no way of knowing that that same Hyuga was thinking the exact same thing…

**End Chapter**

A/N: Well, there's another chapter. Soon (next chapter) we will be discovering Sakura's temporary cure, as well as seeing the relationship between the Hyuga and Haruno develop into something a bit more civil and slightly romantic.

Please review! I'm starting to get disheartened! I am now going to need more than five reviews per chapter.

Much love, and everyone who has me on their alert notice, REVIEW!

-Kaiso


	5. A Temporary Cure and More Confrontations

A/N: Yay! I got more reviews! Thanks everyone, and keep it up! Hearing what people think is always fun, especially knowing what I know (I've already planned out this story and where it's going to go) and what no one else knows yet.

Speaking of knowing things, I'm torn with the ending. I may end up making this story have an alternate ending, but for now, let's put it to a vote. Happy ending or Depressing ending? Help me decide by sending me a review! I'll repeat this at the end for the people who don't read my author's notes.

**Chapter 4: A Temporary Cure and Another Confrontation**

The morning came all too quickly for Sakura. She awoke at precisely 9:32 when the sun finally roused her from her not so deep slumber. She had been up late researching her charges' diseases and attempting to devise a cure. Every night she alternated between theirs and her own.

She opted not to take a shower this morning, logically deducing that she would be getting plenty dirty during her spar with the Hyuga this morning. His offer to take her to lunch afterwards surprised her, to be honest. She chalked it up to being his form of an apology for his interrogation of her two months ago and left it at that. Some things were best not delved into.

Leaving her room in favor of actually getting some breakfast that morning, she entered the kitchen and found a loaf of whole wheat bread, toasting two slices with a well controlled fire-based jutsu. Previous experience in heavy sparring with Naruto told her that it was unwise to eat anything more, and she had a feeling that Neji was far more intense than Naruto; he wouldn't be constantly worrying over her safety…

She supposed that this would end up being a good idea; it would give her a chance to vent her anger out on the Hyuga, and maybe she just might get a good work out from all this.

Afterwards, she continued in her plans for the day, she would visit the hospital and check on the children. She wasn't scheduled to work today, but a day without their smiling faces was like reliving the night of her mother and brother's murders. A bit extreme, perhaps, but definitely an accurate comparison.

Before she knew it, it was ten o'clock, and ever the early bird, tardiness one of the characteristics of her sensei that she did her best to avoid, she decided to change quickly and get to the training grounds a good half hour before her sparring partner. She didn't really know what to expect from Neji, as she had never sparred with him before. It would definitely prove to be an experience, she was sure.

It had been a long time since she had visited Team Seven's old training grounds, she realized as she walked into the area not fifteen minutes later; she was ahead of schedule. The three wooden posts were beginning to rot with age and exposure to the elements and the grass had been worn away from overuse—it was now just a dusty plain littered with a few sparse trees. Hopefully the conservation unit would come and restore the old place…

She sat at the base of the middle post, where Naruto had been tied up after their very first "mission".

It was surreal, thinking that thirteen years ago, Team Seven was a newly established team. Sakura was still pining after Sasuke, and Naruto was pining over her. Of course, Sasuke was pining for his revenge… She couldn't believe that only three years after that, they were ordered to kill him… His death had not been easy to get over, but it was something she didn't have long to think about, as barely two years later, she discovered her Inner was turning on her…

She hummed in thought… She supposed that, had it not been for the Third's decision to have Itachi eliminate the Uchiha, it would have been the Haruno's that would have been exterminated…

The Uchiha massacre occurred roughly at the same time as the Haruno slaughter, the only difference being that it was an entire clan that was lost and not just a small family. It had been a thought at the time, though, that it would be the Harunos in the Uchiha's place.

There was no suspicion that the Haruno clan would turn on the village, or any other sort of conspiracy theory. The simple reason was that the pink-haired Harunos were a liability; after a certain age, they would turn against anyone, and that was not a risk that the Third was willing to take. The problem was, the bigger issue lay with the Uchiha, who were planning a revolt against the village. They were the bigger threat, and both couldn't be eliminated unless suspicions wanted to be raised.

The only one who had really known anything on the issue was the Third, and he didn't wish to pass his information on to the elders… If that had occurred, there would have been two clans lost in a short span of time, and panic would have ensued amongst the other clans.

She must have been pondering this longer than she had thought, for she was interrupted from her thoughts by the voice of the stoic Hyuga.

"Huh?"

"You're early…" he repeated, staring down at her with little more than pleasant surprise. How long had she been lost in her thoughts? He offered his hand to her in an attempt to be polite, or civil at the very least.

"I make it a habit to be early for everything. I try not to follow in Kakashi's footsteps, in that area at least," she returned, standing from her spot without the help of his proffered hand. "Is it eleven o'clock already?"

He shook his head in the negative. "No, I arrived a few minutes early myself…" He was silent as he regarded her, taking in her appearance; she came ready for a fight, wearing her sturdy kunoichi boots, her leather gloves in her back pocket. She didn't appear to have any weapons on her, but he supposed she didn't really need them; they were both close-range fighters. "If you are prepared, we can start now."

She nodded, putting a bit of distance between herself and the coffee-haired shinobi. "Do you want to specify any rules?" she asked, grabbing her gloves from her pocket and slipping them on, stretching the leather as she clenched her fists to get used to their fit.

"No summons," he told her, slipping his hands into his sleeves. "First one pinned or otherwise rendered immobile for ten seconds will be deemed the loser."

She smirked, her silent agreement to his rules. "Then let us begin."

Neither would budge to make the first move, both simply staring the other down, looking for weakness or a dropped guard but finding none.

A light breeze trickled by, whipping Neji's tied hair to the side while gently playing with Sakura's own pink tresses. It was all the distraction that the medic needed to subject him to a Genjutsu.

The misconception about the Hyuga clan was their supposed immunity to Genjutsu; in no way were they immune to the effects. Perhaps to the weaker Genjutsu techniques they were invulnerable, but to a seasoned user like Sakura, whose clan specialized in the mental torture, he was putty in her hands.

For her technique, she changed nothing in the current appearance of the landscape; in Neji's mind, they stood as they were, unmoving and looking for weaknesses, but with her technique in place and the Hyuga's neglect to activate his Byakugan, she was currently observing him from the top of one of the few trees in the area.

'_**Finish him…**_' hissed her Inner, her bloodlust coming to the surface. '_**His mind is vulnerable… End. Him. Now…'**_

Sakura lost her focus on the Genjutsu in favor of grasping her head in an attempt to reign in her Inner, unfortunately releasing the Hyuga without realizing it and leaving him wondering where the hell she disappeared to.

'_No! Not now!'_ she thought frantically, her body tensing when she heard her inner self cackle maliciously. There was going to be a fight, and she didn't know if she could focus on avoiding Neji while keeping Inner Sakura subdued.

Her thoughts distracted her from the threat that was Hyuga Neji, the ANBU captain appearing before her very eyes and knocking her out of the tree she hid herself in.

She landed painfully on the ground below, executing a roll in an effort to lessen the intense pressure of hitting the solid dirt. '_This isn't good… I should get out of here before things gets worse!'_ she thought to herself, using her chakra to give her the strength to even pick herself up off the ground.

'_**Fight! Bring him to his knees and watch him beg for his life…'**_

Her eyes were changing color so rapidly, back and forth from green to black, that it was barely even noticeable, especially to one who was meters away from the kunoichi.

'_**Let his blood stain the ground red!**_**'**__demanded her Inner, attacking her mind's defenses so that she might take over and do as she so dearly wished. '_**Kill! Kill! Kill!'**_ she repeated like a mantra, chilling in its stunning sincerity.

Suddenly Sakura gripped her head, writhing as Inner Sakura took control of her mind by impressive force.

Neji looked on, too confused to attempt to go near her. He had not required the use of his Byakugan in locating the woman, the tree she chose for cover not considered even the least ideal. At her pained expression as she held her head, he thought it best to make use of his bloodline, if not to prepare himself for even more of a fight, then to make sure that Sakura was okay.

What he saw came as more of a shock to him than Sasuke's defecting from the village over thirteen years ago; Sakura's head, behind the spot right between her eyes, was filling with an abnormal chakra, her own, but at the same time, not…

Looking past that fluctuation of chakra, he noticed something slightly more alarming; Sakura had an extra tenketsu…

He moved to approach her, soon finding that that was one of the biggest mistakes he could have made at the time. Her eyes had shifted completely to a void black, any remnants of green entirely wiped out; she looked completely deranged as she stood and met his gaze.

Sakura chuckled darkly, her Inner now in full control over her body's actions. "**My, my… A bit overconfident, aren't we Hyuga?**" she questioned with undirected malice. It seemed to be the only tone she could speak in. "**You might want to rethink your strategy here…**"

Neji backed away ever so slightly in an effort to appease her, knowing just who exactly he was dealing with. "Sakura, I don't want to hurt you," he said in an attempt to bring the green-eyed Haruno from out of the recesses of her mind.

Sakura laughed darkly at this. **"How quaint,**" she remarked offhandedly. Her now clenched fist suddenly began glowing from her concentrating her unmatched chakra. "**Because all I want to do is see your blood soak this ground!**" She charged at him with the intent of destroying his body through a single, powerful punch, hissing in disappointment when he dodged her fairly easily.

"Sakura! Snap out of it!" he growled, dodging each blow as quickly as possible, almost getting hit every once in a while. He honestly didn't want to hurt her, especially when she wasn't even in control of her own actions, but if he had to, he would, not only to save himself, but her as well.

She paid his orders no mind, instead focusing on trying to land a solid hit. Eventually she understood that Neji was fully capable of outmaneuvering every blow she attempted to land, then switching her strategy.

With a battle cry befitting even the most ferocious of shinobi, Sakura lunged, intentionally missing so that her mighty fists could shatter the ground beneath their feet. The second her fist connected, the earth split, dust covering the entire area and rendering the possessed kunoichi blind. Her move was risky in the fact that it would jeopardize her sight and not his, but she was hoping that he might have been crushed under one of the many heavy slabs of soil.

Now without her sight, she used her chakra to sense his own in an effort to grasp his current location. The dust burned her eyes, but the overwhelming bloodlust coursing through her veins overpowered any sense of pain that she may have felt.

By the time her chakra found his, it was too late; he was standing before her, and before she could react, he had lunged upon her, tackling her and forcing her to the ground where he could effectively subdue her by straddling her lithe body. He pinned her arms under his legs, removing their threat from his person.

His Byakugan focused in on her extra tenketsu, the action taking him longer than he would have liked due to the excess amount of chakra building to such levels of concentration. He deduced that this concentration of chakra was what made up the Inner Sakura, and by closing the tenketsu, he would remove the unwanted curse from her form.

After efficiently finding the exact location of the tenketsu, he tapped it with practiced precision and shut it down. She struggled hard against him as he did so, but within moments her struggling ceased as the chakra concentration dispersed and her eyes faded back from black to green.

Her gaze was cloudy as she regained herself, her hands gripping his strong shoulders as he let up on her form now that the danger of being slaughtered had passed.

"N-Neji… I…I" she stammered as her eyes came back into focus. "I almost… How did you…?"

He was panting slightly as he moved to get off of her, holding out his hand to help her up just as he had done minutes beforehand. "You have an extra tenketsu where your chakra builds up, unable to release itself," he explained, touching the spot on her forehead where the tenketsu lay behind. "I closed the chakra point and you returned to normal moments later."

Her eyes widened at that fact, surprise clear across her face. "You subdued my Inner?" Her mind was reeling at the new information, every last bit of her data acquired from years of research flashing through her head. It was all so simple; an extra tenketsu, a simple deformity inherited among the Haruno clan. Why had no one noticed? Well, no one had had the sense to ask a Hyuga to administer a chakra scan… While an incredibly simple answer, there were many holes in the theory. Also, just because Neji had subdued her Inner didn't mean that the effect was permanent… More research would have to be done… "No one… No one's ever managed to do that without knocking me out completely…"

Neji folded his arms over his chest, giving her an almost disbelieving look. "If that is how you express thanks, then you are welcome," he sneered, unable to keep up the nice-guy personality out for long.

She glared at him for the comment. "If you would have given me the chance to sort out my thoughts, you would have received a proper thank you," she informed him, her voice clipped. "Now, I don't much feel like doing so."

"Hn…"

She rolled her eyes at the familiar reply, turning abruptly on her heel and heading in the direction of her home without saying another word. She planned on avoiding another conflict before it had the chance to start.

Of course, nothing in her life could run smoothly… "And where do you think you're going?" he coolly enquired, stopping her in her tracks. He resisted the urge to smirk when he saw her clench her fists; she was so easy to rile up.

Almost casually, had it not been for her overly tense body, she looked over her shoulder to reply. "Home. This information needs to be documented and connected with the rest of my research," she returned simply. What else did he think she was doing?

"You seem to be forgetting that we have a date," he reminded her smugly, knowing that "date" was the last thing she wanted to hear from him. "Lunch, to be exact."

Her eyebrows rose at that. "Really?" she commented sarcastically. "I wouldn't have thought you to be so forward, Neji. It's a pleasant surprise. But I really must decline." She smirked, her mind already back to its witty self. "Unless, of course, you want to accompany me to the mental hospital after documenting this new information. I want to test something out, and I need a Hyuga to do so." How was Neji to know that she was actually sincere in her statement, actually hoping that he would agree; she had no desire to go alone…

It didn't take much for him to realize that she was trying to keep him away from her by bringing up her father so casually. He had a feeling that she knew exactly how uncomfortable being in the mental ward made him, and how unnerved he was two months ago when he stood in the same room as her unstable father. But even knowing this, he couldn't bring himself to back down from the obvious challenge presented to him.

"Of course I will accompany you," he replied with a smile, forcing her off guard. "It would be my pleasure to do so." He gained a great amount of pride at seeing that smirk fall from her pretty little face, but it was lost when she suddenly became dead serious.

"This isn't a joke, Neji… I have no desire to return to that place, probably less than you do, in fact, but I go every week to figure out how much time I have left…" He tensed as she bestowed this personal information upon him, never expecting her to admit such things to him of all people. "Every week, he asks me the same question, 'Why do you keep fighting this? Just give in…', and every week, it gets harder and harder to say no… My control is slipping, and I know that I don't have much time left before I end up like him…"

His question was out before he had the sense to stop himself. "So you distance everyone around you for that reason?" Even to him it sounded bitter, but he couldn't bring himself to say it any nicer. He didn't even know why he was so passionate about this, but at the moment, it didn't matter in the least.

When her eyes darkened he knew he had gone too far, as if he had brought up some unwanted memories from her past. "There is a better reason for my distancing, but you of all people have no right to know what it is… I will warn you right now; it is for the best that you stay away from me, that everyone stays away from me… For that reason, I'm giving my two week's notice to the hospital tomorrow…"

This news truly shocked him; if there was anything that Haruno Sakura was truly passionate about, it was her work at the Konoha hospital. After seeing her with those children the day before, he knew that there was no other place that she would rather be, so why would she try to make herself miserable by staying away?

"Why?" he asked unintelligently, trying to wrap his mind around the idea.

She smiled sadly. "I got too close to them… To everyone… Only pain can follow if I stay… It's better if I'm alone…"

"Even if we've found your cure?" he demanded, starting to get angry. For some reason, beyond him, he didn't want her to subject herself to solitude.

She shook her head. "This is only temporary," she told him. "I can feel my Inner somewhere inside my psyche, but she's incredibly weak at the moment. She's never had to suffer from such an usurp of her power…"

He stormed up to her and grasped her shoulders in a bruising grip as he glared into her determined gaze. "Then I will be there to beat her back! You don't need to be alone Sakura!" The amount of sheer passion in his voice surprised her, he could visibly tell.

"You know nothing about the situation!" she hissed after the initial shock wore off, trying to get out of his hold but failing for the umpteenth time in two months.

"Then enlighten me!" he growled in return. "You try and push everyone away when it's obvious that that's the last thing you want to do! You had no qualms about telling Hinata everything, and she respects you too much to fill in the blanks for me, so how can you possibly say that I know nothing when you do nothing to inform me of your situation?!"

He forced himself to feel nothing when he witnessed her angry tears. He knew he had hit home by bringing the subject up, and it was obviously something that she had no wish to admit.

"I have not told anyone about your condition, nor do I plan to. I simply want to understand," he told her gently, loosening his tight grip on her shoulders yet still holding firm. "You worry that I will reveal your suffering to the village for some sort of personal gain, and yet that would accomplish nothing. Even I have my morals, Sakura…"

At that moment, Sakura's knees gave out on her as she broke into sobs, Neji's grip on her arms the only thing holding her up… Gently, he led her over to the base of a tree and set her down, opting to sit cross-legged in front of her, simply staring until she calmed enough. The fact that she was crying told him that she planned to tell him her reasoning, or at least the facts behind it.

He waited in the awkward general silence, or would've been silence had it not been for the sobbing, not having any idea on how to approach the situation of a distraught woman. It seemed to be ingrained in the male code; the method of comforting women was erratic, constantly changing, and could not be taught…

After a few moments of him staring at her intently as she cried, she managed to calm down on her own, much to his relief. Her breathing was a bit sporadic, but otherwise, she had efficiently calmed herself down enough to speak her thoughts.

"What…What do you want to kn-know?" she stuttered, her eyes downcast as she brought her knees to her chest. Her long pink hair shielded her face from his view in such a position.

He sighed, closing his silver eyes and opening them only when he spoke. "Why do you wish to alienate yourself from everyone who cares about you?" Even before his little encounter with the kunoichi two months earlier, it had struck him as odd that he had not seen the bumbling blonde troublemaker following her around.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself for her own explanation. "No one in the village, aside from Hinata and Tsunade-shishou, knows of the events that led to my father being thrown in the mental hospital… The only other people that know of my father's existence are the staff in the building, and even those are few in number…" She sniffled a bit, wiping a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

"I had told you that he had been locked away since I was only seven years old, and already you have witnessed that the Inners of the Haruno clan have overly violent tendencies…" He nodded, but there was no need for him to do so… "My father, Haruno Saboten, was a prized shinobi, well known in the village for his prowess in Genjutsu and weapon handling… He had been fighting his Inner for nine years before he finally lost control…"

When she trailed off, he urged her on. "And? What happened?" he asked, trying not to sound too much like a mystified child.

"Did you know I had a little brother once upon a time?" she commented offhandedly, a mirthless smile crossing her face as her tears fell across her lips. "His name was Kyo… He was three years old… Brown hair, green eyes… His first word was 'Sa'ra'… My mother… she was pregnant with a baby girl… we never got the chance to give her a name…"

Her voice was quivering, but she pressed through her tale, doing her best to ignore the emotional scars left upon her heart.

"Father had been on a mission in the Village Hidden in the Mist… He had returned acting oddly, but I was too little to notice… He smiled once, to me, but never to anyone else that day…" She grabbed a lock of her hair and began ringing it in her hands until Neji reached out and stopped her, to which she offered a watery smile. "Mother tucked me into bed that night… She kissed my forehead and left the room… I… I fell asleep for what barely felt like a second before I woke up to screaming and crying… I knew that the crying was Kyo and Mother was the one screaming… Having been working on my…" She paused, chuckling without humor at the irony. "On my ninja skills from the game 'Ninja', and… and being so excited about attending the academy in the next week, I crept silently to my parent's room…"

When her head snapped up and her stunningly sharp gaze met his lucid one, he was caught off guard. "Have you ever heard a madman howl out his conquest?" she asked him rhetorically, knowing that he, in fact, had not. "I have… By the time I came to my parent's room…Kyo wasn't crying anymore… Mama was shielding his broken body from my father, and when I pushed open the door Mama tried to protect me from him, but she was already so weak and close to death… How was she to know that he couldn't harm me? My Inner surfaced that day…serving as a protective entity until I turned seventeen… ANBU blackops arrived on the scene not long afterwards… It took eleven of the most seasoned shinobi to overpower my father that night…

"You ask why I don't allow myself to get close to anyone?" she asked, her voice eerily clear and strong as her emerald eyes flashed in some raw emotion. "Because I know that those I have grown close to will be the first my Inner targets when she gains complete control… Before that time comes, I must sever all ties with any remaining friends and acquaintances that I have if I want to ensure their safety upon my eminent descent into madness. _That_, Hyuga Neji," she stressed, standing abruptly from her spot against the tree. "Is why I 'wish' to alienate myself from everyone that cares about me… Does that answer your question?"

With nothing more to say, she executed a transportation jutsu before he could respond, arriving inside her vapid flat and wishing that she could simply die.

Neji, on the other hand, remained seated in his spot on the training grounds, thinking over what she had told him… From his perspective, he could understand why she would not wish to bestow such precious and traumatic information upon him… He only hoped, for her sake, that the effort had not been wasted…

**End Chapter**

A/N: Whew! That was a long one. Let's see, by my calculations, that's roughly 3/2 of what I normally write. While a wonderful feat for myself, I would not expect that all chapters after this will be similar in length. Trust me, I have a feeling that this is just a fluke.

Anyway, please review! I did get one more than usual, and while I thank everyone that reviewed, I still want more! I know that you like my story since everyone is alerting and favoriting it, so please, take the time to review!

Much love!

-Kaiso


	6. Scroll of the Damned

A/N: Well, I can honestly say that I'm surprisingly disappointed with my last chapter… Only one review. That takes my confidence down a few notches… Those of you that have noticed, I changed the rating because I keep flip-flopping on whether or not to include a lemon in this story or not, so keep in mind that it's subject to change.

I decided to alter this chapter by getting rid of the summons I originally had. I know that I hate it when unnecessary plot devices pop into stories, and I realized that that was exactly what I was doing with the summons. They were not in my orignal storyline and I have no idea why I even bothered with them. I didn't like the direction they were setting me up for so I went back and disposed of the vile things.

The next chapter is on its way; I had some issues with viruses and Internet connection, but everything is all better now. :P

In other news, I did not go to prom as I had planned. I was never able to work up the courage to ask out the guy I like, so I didn't see the point in going. I was also really depressed at the time (so you could say that I didn't really want to do _anything_...), but maybe next year...

Enough of my problems! Here's the "rewritten" chapter of Insanity.

**Chapter 5: Scroll of the Damned**

Neji didn't see Sakura again for two weeks, but not for a lack of trying. He constantly tried to catch her at her home, but she was never there, and whenever he went to the hospital, the other nurses simply told him that she wasn't currently on staff, which he believed to be a complete lie…

It was Saturday, the one day of the week where she forced herself to go to the mental hospital for her father's weekly visit. He had no missions any time soon, and since it was early he knew that she hadn't been in to see him yet, so therefore he resolved to wait in the lobby until she showed up.

Sitting in one of the plush chairs that littered the ground floor lobby, Neji reflected the events of the past two weeks in which he had been searching for Sakura without success. When he wasn't looking for the rosette, he was speaking with Hinata. When he told his cousin of the revelation Sakura bestowed upon him, she was genuinely shocked, having waited years for her friend to come out with her past. He even explained to her the temporary solution they found for her insanity.

"How ingenious, Neji," she had said, clasping her hands together in happiness. "Now she can have more time to devise a permanent cure!"

He had rolled his eyes but had said nothing in return, leaving the heiress so that he may have some time to think to himself. That was right after his spar session with Sakura…

Suddenly, the doors of the lobby opened abruptly, in striding an ANBU donning a tiger mask. Only one person in the whole system had ever been given such a mask…

"Sakura…" he whispered, watching quietly as she removed her mask; she seemed to have just returned from a mission. What that mission was, he had no idea as he knew that she had been removed from the out-of-village roster, but she strode into the establishment with purpose, never noticing the Hyuga sitting in the corner.

That was well enough for him at the moment. Without drawing attention to himself, he followed her to her father's room. It wasn't until her hand grasped the knob of the door that she finally noticed his presence.

"What are you doing here Neji?" she asked, exhaustion filling her voice. Whatever her mission had been, it had taken a lot out of her, and yet she never once seemed to exhibit the desire to skip out on her visit.

"Looking for you," he replied, crossing his arms over his chest as he narrowed his eyes at her form. "I've been trying to track you down for the past two weeks."

"Well I don't know how you expected to find me," she returned, removing her hand from the door knob. "I've been in Suna, trying to get pointers from Gaara-sama. If you recall, he often had to deal with the side effects of an alter persona."

"I thought that you weren't permitted to leave the village," he commented, his face giving away his confusion.

She sighed, really not wanting to explain anything more to him. "I wasn't," she finally answered. "But certain circumstances and explanations gave me the proper authorization. I went alone though, so of course you wouldn't have noticed. Now," she drawled, grabbing the knob and turning it purposefully. "I have a meeting to attend. Care to join?"

He really didn't wish to, but found that he really didn't have any other choice unless he wanted to make himself look like a fool. Besides, she had said on their last encounter that she would need him to test a theory.

When he nodded, she opened the door, revealing an intently staring Haruno Saboten. The older man was seemingly in a pleasant mood, though Sakura knew better…

"Ah, if it isn't my spawn," he commented jovially. "Come to try and talk some more sense into a senseless man?" He seemed completely unaware of Neji's presence in the room yet again, shifting as much as he could in his straight jacket.

Even being ignored, the Hyuga couldn't help but feel a bit out of place in the room with the two pink-haired shinobi.

"I've never tried to talk sense into you," she informed him, glaring at his lower form. "All I've done is demand answers."

Saboten seemed bored now. "Yes, and you're quite good at it," he quipped sarcastically. "It's gotten you this far."

Sakura snapped her gaze to Neji's in a split second, apparently having had enough of their meaningless chatter. "Tap him," she requested softly, clenching her eyes shut as she started pacing the room, her father's eyes never leaving her form.

The ANBU captain growled as the older Haruno continuously moved his head around in order to keep sight of his daughter. "Sakura, stand still," he ordered her, rolling his eyes when she froze on the spot to observe him.

Activating his Byakugan, he scanned Saboten's cranium carefully, having slight difficulty in locating his extra tenketsu through all of the excess chakra stored in his head. Eventually, he found it and closed it with little effort, simply waiting for whatever reaction Sakura seemed to be looking for.

When the Hyuga saw a flicker of guilt and sorrow in the man's gaze, he had a feeling that he had succeeded…

"S-Sakura?" the pink-haired man croaked in disbelief, his eyes shifting from her to her companion with stunning speed. "You…I…" He started hyperventilating from shock. "I…I-I killed them! Ayame…My Aya… a-and Kyo… I-Innocent l-little Kyo!" he wailed, his pupils contracting from his panic as he glanced around the room. "I-I think I-I'm going to be s-sick…" He was, and it pained Sakura when she realized that no one would risk cleaning him up…

"Father…" Sakura whispered forlornly, yearning to go to her father's side and help him, but holding back, her emotions conflicting. Deep inside, she did not blame her father for the events that had transpired when she was young. The curse of the Haruno clan was the fault of no one…

"Sakura!" the elder Haruno breathed out urgently. "Sakura, you have to know…your mother… and-and your brother were the l-last people I wanted to hurt," he pleaded hysterically, hoping she would understand. His gaze then centered on Neji; even in his distressed state, he would have to be a fool to not realize that there was a Hyuga in the room. "Hyuga-sama! Please, don't let her become like me!"

He calmed only when Neji gave a sharp nod of his head, knowing that he could trust one of the Hyuga family. "How…How many years have I been in here?" he asked, his breathing ragged from his earlier outburst.

"Eighteen years…" Sakura replied quietly, getting no more than a slight widening of the eyes from her father.

"What…What became of the house?"

"It was burned to the ground to make room for new housing units… No one would take it…" she whispered, her eyes downcast as she absently shuffled her feet around. It didn't need to be explained why…

Saboten suddenly convulsed harshly, his eyes starting to change their color again. "I left a case behind…" he ground out, his voice strained as he struggled to retain control of his body for just a bit longer. "There's a scroll…protected with…chakra… It… It should still be there…buried in the back yard…under the sakura tree… Only a Haruno…can…get through the…seal…"

Sakura's head snapped up to lock eyes with her father's, even though his were closed in pain. "Dad! Daddy!" she cried, trying to keep him with her longer; she did not want to see his Inner again so soon…

"Love…you…'kura…" were the last words he could get out before his eyes were completely overtaken yet again. As soon as the black consumed his irises, his maniacal laugh rang clearly in the padded room. "Quite a nifty trick there, daughter…" he growled, a sick smirk plastered on his face. "Going to show me another?"

She did her best to fight back the tears, did her best to ignore the voice of the man that was her father, but at the same time wasn't. She didn't even register that Neji was leading her out of the room until the door closed behind her, and at that point she collapsed against him, clinging to his shirt as she cried.

This time, he rubbed gentle circles on her back, holding her fragile body to his hard, sturdy one. With tenderness befitting a husband or lover, he led her out of the building, shielding her from the stares of the staff.

They eventually ended up at the training grounds they had inhabited only two weeks prior, both sitting against the wooden stumps sticking out of the ground. Sakura was shuddering in his lap, trying desperately to control her sobs but to no avail. Oddly enough, Neji couldn't bring himself to really care…

From what he saw, he understood that for eighteen years, Sakura had lived with the thought that her father was gone, replaced completely by a psychopathic mirror image of the man. Seeing her father, in the emotional sense of the word, return only to be swept back into the arms of insanity was obviously too much for her to bear…

It seemed, during their time together, that they had bonded in a most obscure way. They had not started out as friends in the least, and had only seen each other a handful of times in the past three months, but it could not be denied that they had formed a permanent bond…

At this point, he could honestly say that he cared about what happened to her, not simply out of curiosity, but out of genuine concern for her wellbeing. He knew that he was becoming fiercely protective of the little spitfire, and would sooner kill himself then watch her go through her ordeal alone.

He told her as much…

She gripped him tighter and cried some more… But, he knew, that this was the only way she could express her gratitude at the moment. He came to realize that Sakura was not necessarily a rude slip of a kunoichi without manners, but a completely blunt and honest individual who was willing and ready to speak her thoughts on whatever subject came up. It was something he admired in her.

Soon enough her sobs quieted down until they reached the point of nonexistence. When she shifted her head, Neji could detect a veil of determination surface in her eyes.

When she looked at him, it seemed, she finally realized who she had been crying on, and the determination was abruptly smothered by embarrassment…

"I…ah…sorry…" she murmured, wiping her tears away with her ANBU grade glove. "I seem to cry a lot around you…"

He shrugged, reaching out his own hand to wipe away a couple tears that she had missed. "I don't mind," he replied. "Perhaps, if you were someone else, I would…but I do not find it bothersome."

"Will…will you…" She really didn't know how to ask him to go with her to her childhood home… Lucky for her, she didn't need to; he understood what she was trying to ask and had already intended to accompany her.

"Of course."

X.X

The walk to the old Haruno home seemed to drag on for hours when it was mere minutes at best. It was a silent walk, yet not in the least bit awkward. Sakura took the lead, the only one of the two who had any inkling of where they were going.

Eventually they came to a stop, standing before a newer looking house that had been built maybe ten years prior. Eight years, even without someone living under its roof, the house had remained unsold, then torn down when the Fifth, through housing records, realized that no one would ever buy it. She had it torn down and rebuilt, and that seemed to quell the anxiety in potential buyers.

Where it used to be a pleasant blue colored home, two stories and encompassing roughly two acres of land, it was now a whitewash apartment complex, roughly four stories high.

Sakura led Neji to where her backyard used to be; her swing set and sandbox were still there, probably in place for the tenants' children. Glancing around, trying not to picture memories of her and Kyo mashing each other's sandcastles into the ground, her eyes landed on her tree, a proud, strong sakura tree.

Asking Neji to locate the chest of scrolls for her, he told her that they were directly entwined in the sakura tree's roots, and that if she didn't want to disturb the structure in any way, she would have to exercise extreme caution.

She was suddenly grateful that she had taken the time to learn earth-based ninjutsu, otherwise she would have had to uproot the tree. A simple manipulation of the headhunter jutsu would do the trick quite well.

While she executed the jutsu, delving into the earth without any sort of interference, a small group of civilians living in the apartments gathered on the foreground to observe; rarely did civilians ever get to experience the sight of jutsu.

Whispers of, "What's she doing?", "Who is that?", and "Why is she disrupting our sakura tree?" met his ears, and for some reason he found himself getting angry. He hoped that Sakura would resurface soon, or else some words would be exchanged that he would rather not mention… He feared that there would be an altercation

If Sakura heard them taking ownership of her family tree, he didn't think that she would take it well…

She suddenly reappeared in the branches of the sakura tree, holding a small chest to her bosom. It was smaller than he had expected it to be, just a simple case. Guarded with chakra, even Neji's bloodline could not see passed the outer casing.

She jumped gracefully from the tree and walked straight to his side with her inheritance in hand, her eyes downcast as she gripped it tightly; her only remaining memoir of her past…

In an effort to comfort her, he draped an arm over her shoulders, holding her to his side. He would have had to been blind to not notice the scathing looks the civilians were giving them, and used every ounce of self-control not to return their glares with one of his own.

It was the same in any village; civilians did not trust ninja. A fear of the unknown made room for the resentment within their souls, and bitter hatred blossomed from their ignorance.

When one swiped a stray rock from the ground and struck the distraught kunoichi with it, he snapped, pulling her close as her eyes snapped open in shock, watering as she considered the cruelty of the people.

"What do you think you ninja are doing with our property?" sneered one fat, balding, middle-aged man. "You have no right to vandalize our possessions." The crowd behind him agreed to his statement.

Neji scoffed at his stupidity. The case even had Sakura's family name engraved on it. "Are you a Haruno?" he growled in response. "Did you plant that tree yourself?" he questioned with an air of superiority, making the man flinch.

Sakura escaped his hold and moved to hide behind him, almost reverting back to her seven year old self. "Neji…" she whispered, clutching her keepsake with one hand while the other was clutched innocently in his Hyuga fighting kimono. "Please… Don't…"

"Look!" snapped the man, his resolve back in place. "We don't need you stinkin' ninja snooping around our property!" Shouts of agreement backed him up. "You're all menaces to society; a bunch of filthy, conniving sons of bitches!" This time, more stones flew, men and women alike taking up arms against them while children watched innocently from behind them. "Get out of here, or we'll make you!"

How desperately Neji wished to teach the man a lesson, to make him suffer by rushing him and closing his tenketsu. It would be so easy… Unfortunately in this situation, it was better for him to swallow that urge and make a humiliating retreat. In the long run, it was most likely for the better; it the bastard reported the incident, Hyuga Neji would be forced to take a suspension from his missions, no matter how justified the beating was…

Instead, he led Sakura away, shielding her from being pelted by stones as they walked.

He had the sudden urge to vent his frustration as he counted the number of times he had been struck before they stopped throwing rocks. Exactly thirty-two times… Perhaps after looking into these scrolls with Sakura he would challenge Lee… It had been far too long since he had pummeled the Gai-wannabe.

He walked Sakura back to her flat on the other side of the village, their trip silent as they dealt with the shock of civilian cruelty. Sakura nursed the bump on her head from where the rock struck her. Neji nursed his bruised ego.

They were the object of many double-takes as they walked together, both of them noticed wryly, too preoccupied with the disturbing actions of the villagers to give it much more thought.

It seemed to take forever to reach her living quarters, the silence was so heavy, but when Sakura stepped through the door and invited him inside with a quiet voice, he couldn't deny that he wanted to.

Now in the privacy of her own home, she set her case on a table and set to work on healing the scrape left by the rock. Once she was through with hers, she directed him to sit on a stool so that she might heal his as well, instructing him to also remove the top half of his kimono. He did as she asked without an ounce of protest.

Sakura, for all the crap she had taken from the man before her in the encounters prior to this one, felt as if she were becoming reliant on the stoic Hyuga, becoming too used to his mannerisms and forms of awkward comfort. She feared she was falling in too deep, but for the life of her could not muster up the will to throw him out of her life like she had done with countless others before him. Even still, she feared for his safety upon the day she finally lost all control; her hope was dwindling, and in situations such as these, it was better to have low expectations… She couldn't afford to get her hopes up any more…

With that mentality, she ran her hand over the wood casing of her findings after she had finished taking care of the welts left by the civilians that littered her companion's body. The look on Neji's face as she did so suggested that he had no desire to touch the case, even if she were to offer him the opportunity. In fact, she could say that he almost seemed…wary of it. Like…like it would hurt him or something. She didn't blame him; it probably would.

As she examined the wooden case, she noted that it was unlocked. Most likely, her father had determined that no one would be able to find it anyway… She was unaware that it was protected with his chakra, but such a detail was irrelevant in regards to her; his chakra would let her through, but would electrocute any other who dared touch it.

Opening her inheritance, she found that her heart was pounding with excitement and anxiety; she had before her a gift from her father before he had lost his sanity. Its significance was not lost on her… Beneath the scroll was a small slip of paper, presumably a note.

Neji watched her movements as she momentarily ignored the scroll, instead focusing her attention on the piece of paper. He had expected her to read it to herself, and was therefore surprised when she read it aloud for him to hear.

"'_My dear Sakura…_

_Now that you are finally reading this, it must mean that the worst has transpired; I have lost myself, and you are entering the fray… Somehow, you have figured out that I buried this case under our tree, and I couldn't be more proud…_

_I'm sure you have noticed the summoning scroll; it contains my broadswords, the ones with the cherry blossoms carved into the hilt… As of this moment, I am no longer worthy of wielding them… Use them well…_

_I apologize for all the grief I've caused you up to this point Sakura… The only way that I can foresee that can make it up to you…if only a little…is with this scroll… _

_I love you more than life itself._

_Live your life well…_

_Daddy"._

Neji was silent as he saw a small tear run down her cheek as she looked over the letter again, this time taking note of the old tearstains left by her father when he was writing this letter to her so many years ago.

Unable to take her silence for much longer, he broke it himself. "Do…Do you want me to leave or…"

She shook her head, running a hand through her hair as she released a deep sigh. "No… No, I'm fine…" She gripped the scroll and moved it into another room, presumably a guest room.

"You don't want to summon them?" he asked quietly, watching her movements as she reentered the room looking distraught. "I would have expected that you would have been eager to do so."

She looked at him, her posture confident but her eyes betraying her exhaustion and desperation. "I don't think I have the energy to go through with it tonight," she told him, reaching behind her back to unclasp her ANBU armor. "Perhaps tomorrow…"

He took in her appearance, judging her body language in an attempt to see if she wanted him to be there. When he couldn't determine anything from her posture, he took a chance and asked her. "Would you like me to be there when you do?"

Her silence unnerved him, but he was so composed that it didn't show in the least. Her forest green eyes closed, allowing him to see physically just how tired she was. So focused on this was he that he didn't notice when she quietly replied, "Please…", but all the same, he knew that she wouldn't do it without him.

"When and where?" he asked casually, standing from his seat to stand before her.

She opened her eyes, keeping them downcast as she replied. "Noon…Here…"

Gently, he hooked a finger under her chin and made her look at him. He didn't know what possessed him to do it, but he did know that he was tired of her avoiding his gaze as if she were ashamed of herself. "I will be here," he promised, his tone firm as were his eyes as they bore into hers.

And before either of them could register, he had placed his lips to hers in a chaste kiss, long enough to ensure that their relationship was forever changed…

**End Chapter**

A/N: Well? Better? Worthy of reviews? Please say that it was!

Much love, and try and get me more than one review this time! (Ten would be appreciated. That would put me at 30 reviews for six chapters. Not that great, but not horrible either.)

-Kaiso


	7. Call Them a Gift

A/N: Well, here's the seventh chapter already. It feels weird… Oh well, feeling ignored. At least I ended up with eight reviews; not the ten I wanted, but it's better than nothing… I'm tired of making my readers suffer while I attempt to become a review slut. But please, let's keep up the progress here!

That was my intention a few weeks ago. That intention was tossed when my computer caught, like, fifty different destructive viruses… Luckily, none of my files were damaged in the repair. But then, I was attacked by plot bunnies and forced to write in those dreadful summons, which I went back and got rid of. I started thinking about how drastically they would change the plot of my story and that was something that I just didn't want. I felt that they would take away from what I was trying to express, and that frustrated me. I had her keep the broadswords though… They really don't change much at all.

You don't have to go back and reread the last chapter, just delete any memory of the summons from your sub-conscious. We good? Alrighty then.

Alright! Let's start this puppy! Enjoy!

**Chapter 6: Call Them a Gift**

After Neji had left the night before, Sakura had promptly passed out from exhaustion, never really giving the kiss they shared much thought. Now that it was morning, 9:04 to be exact, Sakura had plenty of time to overanalyze both the kiss and her feelings for the stoic Hyuga before making her way to the training grounds to meet her summons at noon.

'_What was he thinking?' _she wondered to herself as she sat at her small kitchen table, trying, and failing, to enjoy a cup of black coffee. '_We only just recently became what people would call friends… Where did this sudden affection come from?'_

She let herself sigh as she stared at her reflection in her coffee; it was times like this when she wished that her Inner was there to offer advice like she used to instead of trying to take over her mind…

'_How should I even act around him anymore? Is he expecting me to…I don't know…Ugh!'_ "Stupid Hyuga and his stupid kiss and his stupid mixed signals!" she growled, pounding her table with her fist, thankfully having enough sense to prevent lacing it with chakra; she really didn't want to replace her stupid kitchen table…

She looked to her coffee again, as if hoping the answers she sought would lie somewhere in the settled coffee grounds… When she realized that she would never make it as a psychic who made their living reading tea leaves and the like, she abruptly stood, walked to her sink, and dumped her barely touched drink down the drain.

'_Never mind everything else that happened yesterday…'_ she growled at herself. '_I suppose ignorance can never be cured; people will always be cruel, and even if they aren't, I won't be around to see the day when that changes…'_

She looked at the clock on her wall; 9:11…

"I guess I have a couple of hours to do some research…" she mumbled, running a hand through her long pink hair before grasping it all purposefully. The hair band on her wrist had left an impression on her skin when she removed it to put her hair up… The itchy irritation bothered her… "Maybe it'll take my mind off of certain things…and people…"

Her feet led her to one of her spare rooms. Besides her own, she had two, one for her Inner research and the other for the children's terminal research. Instinct guided her to the Inner room.

She had no sugar coated thoughts when it came to her Inner research; there was very little progress on that front, and almost all of it had been made in the beginning… It all had leveled out from there…

This was one room that she normally kept locked, mostly to keep it from being discovered by curious eyes. She recalled briefly that the only one she had ever let inside was Tsunade, and even that was a onetime thing…

The room itself had no windows, again to keep prying eyes away, and lacked a bed, something she often berated herself for when she fell asleep in the room after countless hours of research that led her nowhere; there was simply no room for it.

The walls were completely covered with theories and diagrams of the human brain. Vaguely she noted that she couldn't even remember what color that specific room had been before she started plastering the paper to keep track of her thoughts.

Individual leaflets were strewn across the floor, some irrelevant while others were important to her current theories.

"I really should organize these more…" she muttered to herself as she glanced around in an attempt to find a somewhat clear path to her workspace.

'_Hello? Ninja?'_ she thought immediately, resisting the urge to smack herself.

With one chakra-powered jump, she was situated comfortably in her untouched clearing, her eyes instantly landing on her journal of notes. Without hesitation, she plopped herself on the floor and grabbled it, rifling through the worn pages in search for a blank one; her observations from the day before had yet to be recorded.

Eventually she found the space she was searching for, grasping her pen. She spoke as she wrote down her observations, an annoying force of habit.

"It would seem that the Jyuken style has a positive effect on the suppressing of the Inner Haruno. Both personal experience and observation confirm the existence of an extra chakra point located between the eyes," she wrote, touching the index finger of her free hand to the point of reference. "This point, when swollen with chakra, will warp the mind, as confirmed by an observing Hyuga. Closing this point wards the Inner. Unfortunately, this method becomes less effective as the Inner gets stronger or becomes immune through overuse. More information needs to be collected…"

She closed her notebook softly, tucking her pen behind her ear as she oversaw the chaos that was her notes and useless theories.

She allowed herself the opportunity to reflect on her ordeal, finding that what she saw was not what she wanted to see. '_Am I only prolonging the inevitable?'_ she thought to herself, staring at all the work she had done and wondering if it was all a waste. '_Am I searching for something that can never be found?'_

She sighed, knowing that her negative thoughts would get her nowhere…

"I might as well organize this clutter; it's a wonder I even know anything about the Inner from this jumbled mess…" She glanced out the door to see the appropriately placed clock once again; 9:16… "Just less than three hours," she told herself. "Let's see if we can't get this place cleaned up…"

X.X

Two and a half hours later, Sakura could actually make out a room from under her slightly more organized clutter; some of the wall had been revealed upon removing useless sheets from the structure, revealing a pleasant shade of lime green, and most of the floor had been picked up.

On the other hand, the garbage now needed taken out…

"I'll organize the more important theories and details later," she promised herself, bending backwards so that she might crack her back. "Neji should be here soon…" '_The stupid Hyuga! Him and his stupid kiss and my stupid feelings and the stupid...'_

Quickly, she wandered into her own room, where she had stored her father's…her…summoning scroll and moved it out to her living room. The letter her father had written her was kept safely in her pocket for later reference.

She considered her father's supposedly lost broadswords, nameless but nonetheless deadly works of art with cherry blossoms carved into their hilts; she remembered them clearly from her childhood, their beauty enticing to her even at the tender age of four.

She suddenly heard an impatient knocking on her door, realizing immediately that it wasn't her expected guest; Neji was far more polite and reserved…

"Hey! Sakura-chan!" called Naruto from the other side of the door.

"Sakura!" Ino was there too, and she could hear TenTen shuffling around outside as well…

The pinkette hesitantly moved to her door, pulling it open to reveal her recently estranged friends.

"Hi Naruto… TenTen… Ino…" she replied weakly, her voice nearly cracking in its attempt to remain void of emotion. "What are you all doing here?"

"Just got back from a mission," replied Naruto with a grin, his arm supporting himself against the doorframe. "We were going to have lunch down at Ichiraku. Why don't you join us? We never see you anymore," he offered, his blue eyes sparkling with hope.

"Sorry…" she answered lamely. "I can't… I have something I have to do…"

"What could you possibly have to do today Forehead?" questioned Ino, adding her endearing nickname for the medic in an attempt to get her friend to loosen up. "You're never around anymore. Naruto's right; we never get to see you."

TenTen nodded in agreement with the blonde. "C'mon Sakura," she prodded with a concerned look. "You always have an excuse; it's almost as if you're avoiding us."

"Ne, TenTen-chan!" snapped Naruto, sending Sakura an apologetic look. "Sakura's busy! She wouldn't turn us down if she wasn't!"

'_Naruto… You have no idea how right TenTen is…'_

"Ano… Sorry Sakura," the weapons expert apologized. "We…we just miss you, is all…"

Sakura forced a smile, years of practice allowing her to pull it off flawlessly. "I miss you guys too," she admitted, shuffling her feet guiltily. "Maybe next time…"

She didn't wait for an answer, simply closing the door on her friends before they could protest any further. It hurt enough to turn them down every time they asked to do something with her…

"That's what she always says," she heard Ino grumble on the other side of the door. "Maybe we should just stop asking, since she obviously doesn't want to have anything to do with us anymore…"

She heard Naruto protest on her behalf, but it didn't make her heart hurt any less… Yes, it was her fault, alienating herself to protect _them_, but having them give up on her was hard for her to bear…

A few minutes after they left, she heard another knock at her door, soft and purposeful… She knew that this time it was actually the Hyuga that she had been expecting.

She opened the door for him, glancing at her clock as she did so. "You're early," she told him, greeting him with a smile despite her despair.

Neji walked in as she moved to allow him entrance, pinning her with a look that only Hyuga's could seem to muster. "Yes… I had the intention of getting here early so that we might go to lunch afterwards…" he replied, gauging her reaction. He was doing his best to acknowledge the kiss they shared the previous night; it was up to her to do the same.

She sighed, messaging her temples. "Look…I know what you're trying to do, but can we talk about it after…you know…" She was honestly a bit confused; she should be happy, but instead she felt as if…as if things were only going to go downhill between their already shaky relationship.

He looked at her, his frustration with the kunoichi obvious, but nodded anyway.

She sighed, thankfully this time, before leading him into her living room. The scroll was already unrolled on her coffee table, its seemingly ancient parchment just larger than the flat surface. There were hundreds of odd symbols on the paper, all leading up to the center where there appeared to be a seal.

She looked at her new confidant, bringing her thumb up to her lips as she did so. When he nodded at her in answer to her silent askance of whether or not he was ready, she bit down, drawing her blood which she then smeared across the parchment; there was no need to sign her name…The broadswords would be staying with her.

When smoke filled the room upon bringing the swords to their location, Sakura half-expected the smoke-detectors to go off. Much to her relief they remained silent, but she opened a window, sputtering as she accidentally inhaled the smoke, to clear the air; it wasn't the smartest idea to summon indoors…

Eventually, with the combined effort of her air conditioning and the wind outside, the smoke had thinned enough to actually see the weapons…

It was a surreal experience, Sakura decided as she picked them up; the last time she had seen these swords, she had been far too little to even dream of picking one of them up. Now, she could hold both of them without a problem.

She could feel her emotions start to overflow. The resurgence of tears forced her to put one of them down as she wiped the strays from her cheek.

"Are you okay?" Neji found himself asking despite himself, keeping a respectful distance as she handled her father's old weapons.

She nodded, taking in a shuddering breath. "Yeah… Fine… It's just…" She could barely contain the smile as she looked at the swords. "They're just as I remember them… It's been over twenty years since they supposedly went missing…" She shook her head. "It's strange… These blades ended so many lives, but they're some of the few good memories I have of my childhood…"

He quirked a brow. "What sort of affect do you believe they would have on your father?" he asked, stepping up to her side as she held the blade she currently possessed out to him.

She shrugged, fighting back her tears. "I'm not certain… Nothing positive for sure… I can feel the Inner rousing… As if she senses the destruction these blades have wrought…" she told him, knowing that she was risking a lot just by holding the weapons. Regardless, she couldn't bring herself to put them down…

'**Just think of the glorious destruction Father brought upon those around him,'** cackled her Inner, making herself known. For over two weeks, she lay dormant in the pits of Sakura's mind, but now she was eager to reassert herself. And it was quite easy to do so…

The transition was nearly instantaneous. Neji looked up just as Sakura's eyes went black and knew immediately what was happening. He moved to tap her flaring tenketsu, but the effort was made nearly impossible when Sakura held her broadsword out offensively.

"**Think of how magnificent it will be when **_**I**_** make your blood dance along my blade…" **she hissed, poising herself to strike him down even as he started backing away from her. **"The thought makes me tremble with excitement…" **

Neji searched for a way to get around her, or even distract her so that he might close her tenketsu, but found that Sakura, even under the control of her Inner, retained every piece of knowledge surrounding both the defensive arts and swordplay stances… There were simply no weak spots in her form…

"**Hm… I wonder just how many lives were ended with this blade…"** she pondered, smirking as the Hyuga tensed at her statement; he would be fun to play with before he died… **"Perhaps I can best the count father achieved…Starting with you Hyuga…"** She purred his name in an attempt to draw him into her little game. While her tone was playful, he could see nothing in her eyes that would betray her intentions…

It was times like these that ninja were at their deadliest; she was unpredictable and that fact made him extremely vulnerable. He knew nothing about the tendencies of Sakura's Inner other than the obvious fact about her being entirely bloodthirsty.

It was like a punch in the gut; he thought he knew so much when in fact he knew so very little at all…

He briefly assessed his advantages, finding that the only thing he had going for him at the moment was the twin to the blade Sakura had aiming for his neck. While somewhat decent with a sword (which he had to be as an ANBU operative), he doubted that his experience would help him here in such an enclosed space. Added to the fact that the pink-haired medic seemed completely at ease holding the weapon…

"**Any last words before I color my carpet red?"** she asked sadistically, her black eyes narrowing in her excitement. When he said nothing she prepared to charge him, but a knock at her door stopped her just as she was about to slit his throat.

"Sakura-chan!" Never before had Neji been so glad to hear Uzumaki Naruto's voice in his life… "Sakura-chan, I think I dropped my wallet when I stopped by this morning…" he muttered sheepishly, his voice giving the perfect visual to his humiliation.

This proved to be all the distraction that Neji needed; when Sakura turned to look at the source of the disturbance, he took the small window of opportunity offered to him and rapidly shut down her enflamed tenketsu, snapping her out of her bloodthirsty daze.

Shaking her head as she regained her thoughts, she dropped the sword, as if burned by its touch, and apologized profusely.

"I am so…so sorry!" she muttered quietly yet as sincerely as possible, running to the door.

Stunned, Neji collapsed on her couch and took a deep breath, trying to get over the fact that he was almost killed due to his, ironically enough, inexperience. As Sakura assured Naruto that she had not seen his wallet anywhere, Neji examined the sword he held, wondering how exactly the twin blades triggered the release of Sakura's insanity.

It came almost out of nowhere, but he really shouldn't have been surprised. It had just been over two weeks since he had first tapped out the monstrosity that took control of Sakura's body; it was bound to make its recovery and surface again. But the odd thing was that there had been no warning signs to the kunoichi's undoing… It just…came out of nowhere…

Vaguely he wondered if it was fate that Naruto came running back to Sakura's flat… Did he know what he just prevented? Was he aware that his childish frog wallet was not on the premises? Honestly, he wouldn't put it past the loveable moron if he really believed he had left his wallet here without his notice… But still, Neji couldn't help being grateful to the Jinchuuriki…

Almost as soon as he had appeared the blonde was gone again, finally getting the point that his beloved wallet was not anywhere near Sakura's property. That was when Sakura returned to the living room, looking as if it were her father's room she was entering instead of her own abode.

She stopped a good few feet away from the couch…away from him…simply staring off into space as she collected her thoughts. She couldn't get too close to him…not after what just happened.

"I…I'm sorry…" she murmured after a few minutes, refusing to look at him. "I don't know…no…that's a lie…I do know what happened…" She appeared torn as she looked at her father's sword; feelings of bitter hate yet also great sadness filled her being as she attempted to figure out what to do with them. "As much as I love seeing these swords again, I can't keep them here… They're a liability to my mental health…" she told him, running a hand through her hair. "But the sentimental value they hold is just too important to throw away…"

She seemed to consider something, still not meeting his gaze. He grew tired of being ignored; despite what just happened, he was not about to let her close herself in in her own little world of insanity.

"If you don't look at me this instant then I will take matters into my own hands as I did last night…" he warned her seriously, killing two birds with one stone as he had gotten her to look at him while at the same time breaching the issue of their minor case of intimacy from the previous evening.

Her face went red at the kiss' mention. She honestly had no idea how to even continue with that conversation; if he wanted to talk about it, he was going to have to lead the discussion on that topic.

He rolled his eyes at her childishness. "Come on Haruno…" he muttered sarcastically, trying to downplay her almost killing him a few minutes ago to get her to loosen up. "We were going to have to talk about it sooner or later… And I think we just found our perfect icebreaker…"

"What do you want from this?" she blurted out, suddenly defensive. "Because a real, normal relationship will never work!"

He chuckled almost sadistically. "Ah, the alienation technique… You can't scare me off that easily Sakura…" he informed her with a smirk, proud of his statement. "I know your reasoning and your fear; who's to say we cannot form an honest relationship?"

She stomped her foot, frustrated that he just wasn't understanding her. "I won't be around for much longer; it's getting worse Neji!" she nearly yelled at him, glaring with all her might. "My attempt to kill you earlier is a testament to that!"

He rose from the couch to stand before her, staring down into her eyes. "If I was afraid of that I would have stopped talking to you two weeks ago…" he replied honestly, recalling his first experience with the Inner Sakura.

"You just don't get it, do you?" she hissed, resisting the urge to hit him so that she might actually knock some sense into the supposed genius of Konoha. "I'm chasing after something that doesn't exist! Trying to avoid something that can't be avoided! So far, I only have two options on the table…" She trailed off at that, reluctant to say anything more.

"And what would those options be?" the Hyuga pressed, forcing her to finish; he wanted to hear her say it.

"I could just wait it out, prolonging the inevitable by closing the tenketsu and eventually giving in…" she started, her emotions switching from furious to demure. "Or…I can just end everything before the insanity takes over—by completely draining my body of chakra… Either way, I lose myself…"

Abruptly he pulled her to him, just holding her tenderly. "Then spend your last days, or however long you decide to give yourself, with me…" he implored, his tone suddenly desperate with her admission. "Enjoy what time you decide to have left; call it a gift, for that is what I will remember this time as…"

'_What was only curiosity has turned to something more…'_ he thought to himself as she nodded into his chest. '_This gift…My only regret is that I did not see it as such from the beginning…'_

**End Chapter**

A/N: Honestly, I'm really considering only doing one more chapter. It just feels like a good place to end it. It's short and sweet (coughmorbidcough), and doesn't give into a bunch of stupid plot detours…

I think that's really all I have to say. Just please review!

-Kaiso-chan


	8. The End

A/N: Hey readers! Sorry I took so long to update. Writer's block was torture and then my computer got _another_ virus… Took forever to get everything straightened out… Also, I've been sending out college applications left and right. So far, I've been accepted into the University of Toledo, and Ohio University, so I'm pretty excited.

Anyway, I vowed to myself that I would make this the last chapter. This story I feel would keep its darker tone best if it were short. I do apologize if the last chapter seemed rushed in terms of Neji and Sakura's relationship. That may be something I go back and fix later when I find the time.

So, hopefully you'll enjoy this last chapter; it's pretty depressing, honestly…

**Chapter 8: The End**

She lasted only a couple of months after summoning her father's swords… The impact on her mind was too large to handle, even with Neji shutting down her extra tenketsu whenever the Inner worked up. Overtime, the method became less and less effective until, one day, it just stopped working at all.

That day… It was one of the hardest days of Neji's life. He had to lose what became his best friend and lover not once, but twice. That day, she died, not just physically but mentally, and it broke him in ways he had never expected.

He remembered the day she died well… That morning, after spending the night with her in her apartment, she just seemed to know. She had stated it so matter-of-factly that it had initially unnerved him.

"Today… It's over," she had muttered, staring blankly up at the ceiling as she lay beside him.

He hadn't needed to ask her what she meant… He knew, despite how much he wished it wasn't so.

That day, he had hated her. In spite of everything, she expected him to be strong enough to be the one to end her life.

"I want you to be the one to do it," she had told him softly, maybe weeks before. "I want you to be the last one I see."

And like an idiot he had agreed. _For her_. Had it been anyone else, he would have denied them, but ever since the katana incident, he had been unable to deny her anything. She had become his everything.

As she lay in the hospital bed, encircled by the few people she could trust including Tsunade, Hinata, and himself, she took his hand.

"Please…when I'm gone, I want you to tell him that I'm dead… I want you to tell him that I didn't let it consume me, and that I died sane and happy," she requested quietly, her once sparkling green eyes dull with purpose.

"I will…" he had promised hesitantly, trying not to choke on his own words. She was speaking of this day and its significance as if she were discussing the weather; like it just didn't matter…

"And… please tell everyone that I'm sorry…" This she said to all three of them. "I didn't want to do what I did… But it truly was for the best…"

"We know, Sakura," Hinata assured her, trying valiantly not to cry just as Tsunade was failing to do.

She had nodded, pleased with everyone's willingness to do as she requested.

"Neji… One more thing…"

"Hm?" Couldn't she see how much he was hurting? Did she really have to draw this torture out? But _for her_ he would hear what she had to say.

"I hid the swords away in my research room… I stopped going in there once I realized that I could do nothing to prevent this…" she murmured, smiling softly at him. "I would like it if you would take them… Put them to use… I feel like…like it would keep a piece of me with you…"

'No… I can't…' "Of course," he told her, gripping her hand firmly, just so that he could _touch_ her like this one last time before he…

To everyone, she spoke one last time. "Thank you for staying with me… Despite the curses of my living, my life has been blessed." She put on one grateful smile, looking at each of them before resting her eyes on the Hyuga that had inadvertently become her rock. She nodded. She was ready…

It was over too quickly. The finality of it hit him just as she expelled her final breath. He suppose that he should count himself lucky; he didn't have to see the blacks of her eyes reveal themselves in her final moments like he had feared. He would be able to remember her with her green eyes and compassionate nature instead of the Inner's blank, bloodthirsty gaze and merciless lust for destruction.

When the light left her beautiful emerald orbs, Hinata broke down, collapsing to her knees and clutching the sheets of the bed as she sobbed. Tsunade clenched her fists so tightly that her nails drew blood from her palms, her cries of despair paralleling those she had cried for her lover and brother. Neji supposed that these tears were for the daughter she had stumbled across those thirteen years ago…

He himself somehow managed to remain outwardly collected, the only signs of his grief showing themselves in the way he clutched at her limp hand.

X.X

He entered the asylum wearing a mask, his appearance giving nothing away as to the inner workings of his mind. He strode with purpose to Haruno Saboten's room, ignoring the nurses as they tried to warn him away or ask if he had clearance to be here.

He came to the door, inwardly bracing himself for what he knew was to come; on the inside, he could hear malicious laughter, and unlike the times when he was here with Sakura, it wouldn't stop.

Taking a slight breath, the only sign of his anxiety, he opened the door and closed it behind him, taking in the man that had once fathered the beautiful woman with whom he had fallen in love and had put to death.

Now, as he took him in, he saw that without Sakura, the man was like an animal, foaming at the mouth and rocking back and forth as he continued his hyena-like laughter. He paid little mind to the intruder in his cushioned room, and proceeded to jabber nonsensically to himself.

Somehow, he wasn't quite sure exactly how he did it, Neji managed to make himself heard over the chatter.

"Sakura is dead. She died this morning by my hand. She wished for you to know that she died quite sane and ended her days in happiness…" he reported coolly, marveling at how his voice never wavered.

Haruno Saboten grew silent, just for a moment, as if taking in the news gifted unto him by the Hyuga. Then, as if realization hit, the silvery haired man went berserk, roaring and spitting angrily, trying, and almost succeeding, to escape his strait-jacket to get to the much younger man. Perhaps he wanted to kill him, and as far as Neji was concerned, he didn't care.

X.X

He went with Hinata to see each of Sakura's friends; he never realized that she had so many…

Naruto was first. His reaction, Neji supposed, he deserved. The first thing the Kyubi host did was punch him in the jaw. After seething a few moments, the adrenaline numbing any physical pain he may have felt, Naruto collapsed on his knees and sobbed, lamenting the loss of his friend and cursing her at the same time.

"Why? WHY! She could have told us! We could have helped her!" he roared, his voice watery. "As smart as she was, why did she have to be such an _idiot_!"

Hinata dropped to her knees and enveloped the young man with her arms, letting him sob into her chest while she herself cried silent tears.

"I'm…I'm sorry," Neji murmured, his eyes downcast. He didn't bother applying pressure on his cheek; he deserved to feel the pain. "She wanted to protect you. She feared for your safety until the very end…"

"Someone should have protected her!" Naruto snapped, tearing himself from Hinata's embrace. "She was my best friend! I should have been told!"

"I know… We tried to help her, but she knew it wouldn't be enough... She died to save everyone she cared about from herself," Neji reported, his tone thick as he tried to keep the bitter emotions out of his voice.

Naruto chose that moment to actually look at him, his eyes widening as he came to a sudden realization. "You…You loved her…" he gasped, stunned. The look was not exactly becoming on him with tears running down his cheeks.

Neji was hesitant to reply, but eventually conceded an answer, nodding his head slowly. "Perhaps…Yes… I think I did…"

At the admittance, Naruto grasped the sleeve of the elder Hyuga's jacket, pulling him into an apologetic embrace. "I'm sorry…" the blonde rasped, patting the normally stoic Hyuga's back as his emotions unraveled in one large burst.

Hinata could only watch as the two men did all in their power to comfort each other, only to not come close to it actually being enough…

X.X

Her memorial was held two days later.

Practically the entire village was in attendance, each person having been touched in some way by the compassionate pink-haired nurse. Whether it was her mending a broken arm, or escorting a traveler through dangerous territory, Sakura had been a fixture in peoples' lives, and was greatly mourned.

Among those who were the first to place their flowers on her casket, delicate cherry blossoms appropriately, were Neji, Tsunade, and Hinata, followed immediately by Naruto and Ino.

Naruto had been the one to read the eulogy. Despite appearances, it was simple impossible for Neji to muster the strength to do so.

The floor was opened to anyone who wished to relay a pleasant memory of the spirited rosette, and nearly everyone had something to say. A service that started at sunrise did not end until well after sunset, and yet no one made a single complaint.

The knowledge of the true reason of her passing was limited to a miniscule few, the method in which she died known by even fewer. Such knowledge, it was felt, would only bring the beloved image of Sakura down. Ignorance, in this situation, was truly bliss.

Certainly it did not alter the image of those who did know, but that could be attributed to the fact that they knew Sakura personally, and understood that her condition and the way she chose to die did not define her as a woman of little moral character, but rather ensured that her sacrifice would be remembered and appreciated over time.

Even when the service ended, five figures stayed behind to honor their fallen comrade and friend, three of them blondes, two of them Hyugas. Over and over, they read the rosette's tombstone, still taking in the fact that the energetic and lively prodigy of medicine was no longer with them.

Eventually, those of the five started to make their journey home, each reluctantly leaving the gravesite but promising to anyone that would listen that they would return soon and often. Ino was the first to leave, then Tsunade, then Naruto and Hinata together, leaving Neji standing there by himself, gazing at the stone that marked Sakura's grave.

_Here lies a dear friend,_

_A fearless shinobi,_

_A devoted medic,_

_An eager student,_

_And a compassionate spirit._

_May the embodiment of _

_Cherry Blossoms find her peace _

_In the afterlife._

Neji contemplated the appropriateness of where her grave was stationed; under a proud cherry blossom tree that overlooked the village. Nothing could have been more fitting.

With surprising tenderness, he plucked a blossom from the tree and laid it on the tombstone, letting his fingers linger on the cold granite before he too turned to make his way to an empty home.

**End**

A/N: Hm… Well, this was kind of fun for me to write despite its depressing content. Again, I apologize profoundly for how long it took for me to get this up, but, I'm glad to say, it's finally over.

I don't know when I'll be starting my next story; I have to find the time between all my classes and preparations for college.

There are two I have in mind and I already have a few chapters done for both, but it may be awhile before you see something from me.

Thank you to all who stuck with me on this horrid rollercoaster-type plot. It was just something I had to get out there.

Much love!

-Kaiso-chan


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